


Company C

by Erandri



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst with a Happy Ending, Getting Together, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Minor Character Death, Secret Relationship, Strangers to Lovers, Swearing, The Author Sucks at Writing Sexual Tension, Typical War Violence, Vietnam War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-14
Updated: 2018-04-19
Packaged: 2019-04-22 22:17:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 26,684
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14318304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Erandri/pseuds/Erandri
Summary: Danny has one goal, make it through his draft so that he can go home and see his daughter again. Unfortunately, between the Viet Cong and his new commander, he’s not so sure that coming out unhurt is a possibility.





	1. The New CO

**Author's Note:**

> Between researching and writing, this story has been almost a year in the making. The events in this story are based heavily off of the real-life Charlie Company which served in the Mobile Riverine Unit in Vietnam. There's no set time for when this story takes place.
> 
> A huge thank you to my beta [PhoebeMiller](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PhoebeMiller/pseuds/PhoebeMiller) who put up with my last minute writing to make this story readable, and to my artist [HellHart](https://archiveofourown.org/users/HellHart/profile) who made the stunning artwork for the story and my writing playlist.
> 
> Listen to the playlist on [Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/user/1222554821/playlist/7mGuoWmA0hdP94yfU2fXJO?si=qERx0frrTVytqRKFw3ovjQ)
> 
> Follow me on [Tumblr](http://erandri.tumblr.com/)!

 

_ “It's hot hot hot out there folks,” _ the energetic voice of the announcer comes through the radio speaker, breaking through the silence that had followed the chaplains morning prayer, _ “It’s only eight in the morning and already 92 degrees here in Saigon and that's nothing compared to down in the delta where we have reports that it's 105 and rising in Can Tho. If you've got-” _

The radio cuts out before the DJ can say anything more and Steve turns to see the skipper adjusting the dial. “I don't need him to tell me it's hotter than Satan's toenails out here,” the skipper says over the buzz of static as he tries to dial in a new station. Finally, he settles on one that’s playing The Rolling Stones.

“Now that's more like it!” the skipper laughs, turning the music up louder and urging the boat to move a little faster, adjusting their course to take them farther away from the banks of the river where they had slowly been drifting. He seems content now so Steve turns back to watching the countryside.

It’s still early in the morning but the river is already a flurry of activity. They pass a patrol boat scanning the overgrown shoreline, men on the stern and prow looking for any sign of the Viet Cong. Steve raises a hand in hello when one of the men turns to inspect the craft as they pass. The soldier looks grim-faced as he stares at him, his eyes hard set underneath his banged up helmet. The man turns back to the shore, watching the river banks like he suspects the Viet Cong to come out of the bushes at any moment.

“We’re coming up on the ship,” the skipper calls to him from the helm, nodding off to the horizon where the silhouette of the barracks ship is just visible in the morning sky. It’s by far the largest thing on the river, an old WWII relic, recommissioned and then added on to, making the single ship into an entire compound. Already he can make out at least four boats moored to her docks and a helicopter waiting on the landing pad.

As they approach, he can start to make out movement on the ship. Army and Navy men alike are moving around the deck, some doing jobs and some just enjoying the sunshine before the heat gets too oppressive. He can hear the faint hum of music being played somewhere on deck but as soon as he hears it, the song is lost in the breeze.

When the boat is finally moored and a gangplank spread across the divide between the boat and the deck Steve takes his first steps onto his new home. Four sailors move past him to unload the boat but other than a couple of  _ excuse me’s _ they don’t pay him much mind.

“You must be McGarrett,” a voice calls to him from farther up the docks and Steve watches as a large man comes forward to greet him, “I’m Captain Lou Grover.”

Steve immediately salutes and Captain Grover gives a lazy return, “Now put that down and let’s get you settled in,” Captain Grover claps him on the back and leads him up the stairs and onto the ship.

If the Mobile Riverine Base looked massive from up river, it’s nothing compared to how it looks on deck. The control tower looms over him as Captain Grover leads him through narrow walkways and across the whole of her deck until finally reaching an open door towards the prow of the ship. He doesn’t say much as he leads Steve through the belly of the ship, only pointing out important places that Steve should know like the mess hall, the galley, the stairway down to the soldier’s bunks. He tries to keep track of everything as they pass by but every door looks the same and by the time they make their third turn he already feels lost.

“This will be your quarters,” Grover tells him, stopping in front of a door and swinging it open to reveal a cramped room. “Count yourself lucky that you got here when you did,” the captain tells him, ushering him into the room. It’s so narrow that if he wanted, he bet he could stretch his arms out and touch both walls, “She may be small but at least you don’t have to share, most of the other CO’s are double or triple-bunked.”

“This’ll be just fine,” Steve agrees. Truth be told, he wouldn’t mind bunking with some other people if he had to, he’s never had an issue with it before, but the prospect of having his own room to come back to after a mission does sound appealing.

“C’mon, drop your bag and I’ll take you to meet your boys,” Grover starts to leave before Steve can so much as move, so he hastily drops his pack onto his bed and closes up his room, jogging to catch up, “Don’t be offended if the men don’t take to you right away. They’ve been with Lieutenant Anderson since basic so they took it hard when he left.”

“Can I ask what happened to him, Sir?” Steve asks as they come out of the ship.

“Stepped on a booby trap and lost most of his leg. You’ll find that’s how we lose most of our men out here. I don’t know what they told you back in the states but this ain’t like any other war we been in. All the VC do is set up traps and hope we walk into ‘em. If there is any gunfire it usually only lasts as long as it takes for them to run away,” Grover stops just before they come out onto the deck, casting a look around to make sure they can’t be overheard, “I’ll give it to you straight, the men are frustrated. They trained for months for a battle but they’ve never had one. We lose more men every day to daisy chains and god damn punji sticks than we ever will to a Viet Cong bullet and it’s getting to them. These men have known each other for months, hell some of them knew each other before they got drafted. They’re itching for a fight and every day we lose more men to traps tensions get a little higher.”

“How many men have you lost?” Is all Steve can think to ask in the face of the captain’s speech.

“About a quarter of the troop,” Grover sighs and walks on, forcing Steve to follow as he’s lead to a group of men hanging out by the helicopter pad. They’ve got the radio playing as they lounge on the deck, sprawled across supply crates and chairs they’ve stolen from somewhere in the ship. As they approach, Steve watches as one of his soldier, a short blond man, hauls another soldier to his feet and starts dancing with him, pulling him close and trying to get the other soldier to move his hips. The second soldier hastily separates himself to the uproarious laughter of the group but the blonde is undeterred as he continues to dance across the deck, moving his body expertly in time to the music.

As they approach the men on deck realize just who it is that’s coming towards them and they all jump to their feet, standing at attention and trying to look professional. When the blonde stops his dancing and spins around to see what’s caught the platoon’s attention, Steve can see the blush rise to the man's cheeks as he notices that it’s the captain standing just in front of him. Captain Grover starts talking to the men and Steve watches his soldier as he steps back into line. He watches as each of the men cast quick glances over to him, checking him out. When he notices the blonde is looking over, Steve quirks an eyebrow at him and has to bite back a smile when he quickly turns back to Captain Grover.

“This is Lieutenant McGarrett,” Grover introduces him and Steve turns his full attention to what’s being said, “He’ll be your new unit leader and I expect you to show him the same respect that you showed Lieutenant Anderson.” There’s a chorus of  _ Yes, Sir _ s before they’re dismissed and they all disburse, hardly paying him any attention.

“Nice of you to show off your moves for the new CO, Danno,” one of the men jokes with the blonde as they walk past, shoving his shoulder and causing a couple other guys to laugh with him as the blonde- Danno- flips the guy off as he disappears into the ship.

“Lieutenant McGarrett?” a voice with a heavy Midwestern accent asks from behind him and he turns to see a scrawny kid still standing at attention.

“Yes?”

“I’m Daryl Ward, Sir. Your platoon sergeant,” the kid introduces himself, holding out his hand. Steve takes it, noting that despite his small frame, he has a hell of a grip, “Sir, would you like me to go over some of the platoons files with you?”

“Lead the way, Sergeant Ward,” Steve says, gesturing for Ward to go ahead of him and turning his thoughts away from his soldiers and onto how he’s going to lead them into battle.

\---

“So the new CO,” Meka says by way of hello, climbing up into his bunk across from Danny.

“What about him?” Danny asks distractedly, not looking up from the letter he’s writing.

“Seemed kinda green, dontcha think?”

“To be honest buddy, I wasn’t paying that close attention to him,” Danny says, which he knows is a bald-faced lie but he’s hoping that Meka doesn’t notice.

“Oh right, right. I guess it would be kinda hard to focus after that little dance lesson you were giving. What was the name of that move again? The Jersey shuffle?” Meka laughs at him.

“You’re an ass,” he says, throwing the pen of his cap across the aisle. It barely makes it the distance and falls ineffectively against Meka’s stomach which only serves to make him laugh more. After a while, Danny can’t hold himself together anymore and starts laughing with him. “Of all the times that the captain and the new CO could have chosen to walk up, it had to be then? Not two minutes earlier when Bugs was making a fool of himself trying to do the mashed potato?”

“I guess you just have that kinda luck.”

“Must be,” Danny says, turning back to his letter. He barely has two sentences on the page and he’s not sure that  _ Dear Gracie _ counts.

“What are you writing to the little keiki?” Meka asks, trying to peer over the aisle to read his letter.

“The same as always, the weather’s nice and that I love her. It’s not l like I can tell her the truth.” He might say something about Lieutenant McGarrett joining the team, at least it’ll be a little variety from his usual letters. Rachel will wonder why he has a new CO but she’ll probably have the decency to keep her questions to herself.

“Tell her I say hi,” Meka tells him excitedly.

“Sure, you, and Bugs, and Mickey, and John, and hell, half the platoon tells me to say hi to Gracie,” Danny laughs, he can’t help it. He’s not the oldest in the unit-though at 25 he’s not far off-but he is one of the only ones to have a kid. Some of the other guys have pregnant wives back home, some even have newborn babies of their own, but he has a toddler and that makes him something of a novelty on the ship.

“Yeah, but I’m her  _ favorite _ uncle,” Meka says proudly.

“She’s never met you,” Danny feels compelled to point out.

“No way brah, we sent her that picture of the platoon last month. She knows what I look like.”

“Whatever you say,” Danny says and laughs when Meka proudly nods his head in agreement.

“So you think this new guy’s going to be alright? I overheard the captain mention that he was from Oahu so that says something.”

“Just because a guy’s from the same place as you doesn’t mean he’s any good.”

Meka makes a sound like Danny’s talking nonsense and says something in Hawaiian that Danny’s pretty sure translates to ‘he’s talking nonsense’. Meka doesn’t press the subject any further but he’s done what he planned to and got Danny thinking about it.

The Lieutenant hadn’t seemed green to him, just a little rusty. He held himself like he was used to being in charge but he just hadn’t been in a long time. Danny wonders what that’s going to mean for his leadership skills but he refuses to worry about that, not while he’s trying to write a letter to his daughter.

“What are you guys talking about?” John Davies asks, crawling up onto the bunk next to Danny. Behind him, Don Johnson and Cesar Gonzales follow suit, grabbing a seat anywhere they can find it.

“The new Lieutenant,” Meka answers, ready as ever to swap theories with someone.

“You think he’s no good?” Gonzales asks. He’s one of the newest recruits on the squad, still baby-faced and looking to find a place for himself in the group.

“I think he looked green.”

“His uniform did look new,” Davies says.

“And his boots didn’t have a lick of dirt on ‘em,” Don chimes in.

“See! He’s gotta be green.”

“What if his old uniform just got wore out?” Gonzales chimes in and just like that, they’re all off, arguing about new uniforms and clean boots and what it all means.

Eventually, Danny manages to tune out the arguing long enough to fill most of a page with happy scribbles about how he loves and misses Grace before sticking a photo of the river into it and shoving it into an envelope, “I’m going to the PX,” he announces to the group, jumping off of his bunk.

“Check if there’s anything for me?” Meka interrupts himself long enough to ask, and Danny nods okay before leaving the bunk rooms.

The ship is nearly empty as he makes his way through it, all the rest of the platoons have been deployed so it’s just his unit and the navy boys. Company C only got to stay behind because Anderson was laid up in the hospital and they were waiting for word if he would be coming back or not. Now that they’ve been assigned McGarrett, Danny’s sure that the brass will waste no time in getting the company back out into the jungle.

He’s almost relieved by the thought. There’s something unsettling about being assigned to the ship in the middle of the war while there are men out there dying. He may not have wanted to be here in the first place but now that he is here, he’s not going to just sit by and do nothing while other guys are fighting.

He’s so lost in his thoughts of what tomorrow will hold that when he rounds a corner, he almost doesn’t see the person standing in front of him. He narrowly avoids crashing into them and just when he’s about to give them hell for standing in the middle of the hall, he notices that it’s McGarrett. He snaps his mouth shut with an audible click, not willing to embarrass himself in front of his platoon leader twice in the same morning. McGarrett turns around, hearing him come up behind him and nods hello. Instead of the haranguing he was preparing himself to give, Danny very politely excuses himself and keeps walking towards the PX. He only gets a couple steps before he slows to a halt, realizing how confused McGarrett had looked.

“Can I help you, sir?” he asks as respectfully as he can.

“No,” McGarrett says resolutely, “I’m just headed to the PX,” he explains and starts to walk in the direction that Danny came.

“That’s where I’m headed,” Danny says and sees McGarrett’s shoulders slump when he realizes he was headed the wrong direction. He feels like he should say something comforting, like he got lost half a dozen times in this hunk of metal before he got his bearings, but he’s not sure that McGarrett would be comforted by one of his privates trying to console him. Before he can make up his mind, McGarrett passes him, his long legs covering so much distance that Danny needs to jog a little to catch up with him.

McGarrett doesn’t say much as they walk so Danny takes the opportunity to scope him out. He’s tall, is the first thing that Danny notices. Danny’s one of the shortest guys in the company so he’s used to people being taller than him but McGarrett has got to be one of the tallest. Danny also notices that McGarrett now has his formal uniform on, and there’s quite a bit of chest candy on his shirt. He’s not sure what all the medals mean but he does recognize a couple of them as combat medals. So much for Meka’s theory that he’s green.

There’s also the small tidbit that McGarrett is ridiculously handsome, even with his hair shorn into a military regulation cut. His eyes remind Danny of the shore on a stormy day and he has to force himself to look away so that he doesn’t get lost in them. Thankfully, he was almost at the PX when he ran into McGarrett so he doesn’t have to be alone with him for too long.

He hands off his letter to the officer on duty and asks if there’s anything for Hanamoa, all the while aware of McGarrett standing quietly just a couple of feet behind him. Danny can feel McGarrett’s eyes on him and he tries not to squirm under the scrutiny. He finishes his business as quickly as he can so that he can leave McGarrett and the weight of his gaze. When he does turn to leave, McGarrett gets his attention and offers a small smile when he says, “See you around, Danno.”

“My name’s Danny,” he says indignantly and feels like banging his head against his wall. Just how many times can he embarrass himself in front of his platoon leader in one day? He’d like to blame it on McGarrett’s disarming good looks but that shouldn’t be an excuse, “I mean, Private Daniel Williams. Some of the men call me Danno because it’s what my daughter calls me,” he hastens to explain.

“That’s cute,” McGarrett says and Danny gets the impression that he’s trying not to laugh at him, “I’ll see you around,  _ Danno _ .”

Danny want’s to rebuff him, but he knows a dismissal when he hears one and even with the lace of humor, that's clearly what his platoon leader is doing. So he sighs, nods his head goodbye, and tries to keep his irritation bottled long enough to find Meka so that he can complain to him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Follow me on [Tumblr](http://erandri.tumblr.com/)!


	2. The Rung Sat

Just like Danny thought, the brass wasted no time in getting the platoon back out into the field. It’s just a milk run, a search and destroy mission of an area of the Mekong River that’s already mostly been cleared. It’s supposed to be a test to see how well the platoon manages under their new leader, to allow them to get used to how the other operates.

The ATC drops them off twenty feet from the shoreline somewhere in the middle of the Rung Sat and the platoon hits the ground running as soon as the ramp splashes down into the murky water. It’s low tide and the water has receded, exposing miles of thick mud along the river banks. As soon as Danny steps off the ramp he sinks into the sludge until it buries his boots and he has to fight against the suction holding him down to make his way to the underbrush at the shoreline. All around him the rest of the platoon struggles to make it to solid ground as the ATC pulls up the ramp and backs away. Next to him one of the greenest replacements lose his battle against the mud and falls face first into the black muck. He pops back up with a face full of mud and a ripple of laughter moves through the group at the rookie’s expense. Finally, Danny makes it out of the river bank and holds out a hand to help the still struggling replacement the last couple of feet to solid ground.

“Everyone make it?” Lieutenant McGarrett calls from the head of the pack, scanning over the group and doing a headcount to make sure everyone is accounted for. There are a couple of lackluster affirmations before McGarrett turns and tells them to move out.

It’s slow going, moving through the jungle. McGarrett sent out three scouts to look for any sign of the Vietcong but in the thickness of the brush they cant go more than a hundred feet from the platoon or risk getting lost. Or worse, the platoon not being able to rescue them in time if they stumble into a Vietcong booby trap.

At the front of the platoon are McElroy and Davies, hacking a path for the rest of them to follow through. Danny brings up the rear with Meka, Don and a couple of the other original guys. There’s nothing really to look out for. In the three months that Danny’s been with Company C, they haven’t had a single firefight with the Vietcong. Still, Danny has a job to do, so he keeps his gun ready and scans the underbrush for any movement.

The going doesn’t get any easier the further away from the landing zone they get and it’s barely been an hour before McElroy and Davies hand their machetes off to two other guys and switch places with them. Danny watches with disinterest as the guys start hacking at the brush and vines littering their way. He looks down to check his footing as they start to move forward again, swatting at a bug that keeps swarming him. Suddenly, someone yells just as an explosion rips through the jungle.

He covers on instinct, raising his gun at the shadows in the trees as dirt rains down on him. Through the ringing in his ears, he can hear someone screaming in pain and a quick look around tells him that it’s the replacement that Davies had handed his machete to. He’s laying on the ground, machete forgotten next to him, and clutching at his mangled leg. Doc slides beside him, moving the kids' hands away so that he can see the wound better but the kid fights back, pushing Doc’s hands away from him. McGarrett calls for the two closest guys to hold the kid down so that Doc can work then picks up the machete from the ground and tells a couple more guys to start clearing a landing pad for the medevac. Determining that there’s no more threat, Danny lowers his gun.

“Danno,” Bugs calls over to him once he stands, motioning for him to join the group where he and a couple other guys have congregated. Even though they all know it was probably just a single tripwire, he can’t help but notice they all keep their fingers on the triggers of their guns.

“Hell of a thing,” Don says when he joins them and the rest of the group nods in resigned agreement but no one says anything more. He glances over at the kid when he screams again and watches as Doc pulls pieces of bomb shrapnel from his leg before applying bandages.

“Think he’ll get sent home?” Bugs asks the group and everyone else turns to watch Doc work.

“Nah, he’ll be back in a couple months,” someone says as Doc finishes tying the last bandage. The kid has finally quieted down now, either from morphine or because he’s passed out from pain. Danny wasn’t paying close enough attention to tell. The rest of the group starts talking amongst each other about something that happened back on the ship but Danny doesn’t listen. His gaze has fallen on McGarrett, standing sentry over his injured soldier as Doc stands up to give him the prognosis. He can’t hear any of what they’re saying but he sees, just for a split second, the anguish on McGarrett's face when he looks down at the kid.

By the time Danny blinks, the expression is gone, replaced with the same cold, detached expression that he’s had since they loaded into the ATC this morning. Finally, Danny turns back to the group but he feels like he’s seen something that he wasn’t supposed to. He doesn’t have time to dwell on it though, as the sound of an approaching helicopter gets their attention.

The guys tasked with making a landing pad finish their job as the helicopter hovers above them and then clear the way as it touches down. The pilot doesn’t even turn the bird off as the two guys that McGarrett had had hold the kid down lift him up and carry him to the helicopter. As they pass by Danny gets his first good look at the kid. He can’t be more than nineteen Danny realizes as two medics haul him into the body of the helicopter and, as the bird lifts off and then vanishes from sight, Danny realizes that he didn’t even know the kid’s name.

McGarrett gives them a moment of silence as the sounds of the helicopter dissipate but then he’s calling them all back to their feet. They gather reluctantly, none of them wanting to go back to slagging through the jungle, but they do get up and gather their things again. Slowly, the platoon makes their way around the hole where the bomb exploded, everyone slowly falling back into position.

It’s only because Danny’s one of the last ones in the clearing that he notices the man lying against the tree. He goes over to kick the guy awake and get him moving but when he approaches he sees that it’s Davies, staring blankly at the empty landing area.

“Y’okay there John?” Danny says down to him when he doesn’t move at his approach. Slowly, John blinks and looks up like he’s coming out of a fog. Danny can see the guilt written as clear as day across his face, but also the relief that it wasn’t him riding in that bird back to the hospital at Long Binh.

“Yeah, yeah I’m okay,” John says but his voice is hollow, nothing like the brass, booming sound that they’ve all come to know him by. For once in his life, Danny doesn’t have anything to say, so he just holds out a hand to help him up. John takes it and they start making their way to catch up with the rest of the unit. Before they can get too close Danny puts a hand on Johns' shoulder. “He’s gonna be okay John.”

John sighs and Danny can feel his shoulders slump underneath his hand, “Thanks Danno,” John says, patting him on the shoulder before moving back to his position at the head of the group. Danny watches him go, noting the way he seems so much older now than his twenty-two years.

\---

The mood in the group is different when they start moving again. Steve can tell that everyone is more on edge, they’re moving a little slower, watching their steps more than they would have an hour ago before Tull stepped on a booby trap. Steve had seen the wire, but it was too late to stop anything. All he can do is be grateful that Tull had been at the end of the trip wire and furthest away from the explosion as he could be. Any closer and he might have lost his whole leg to the Vietcong.

They go for a couple more hours before he lets the platoon rest, and as soon as he gives the order to stop the men collapse onto the jungle floor. A couple take the opportunity to dig into their rations, but most just try to find a tree to lean against so they can stretch their feet out. He looks the group over, taking in everyone’s condition but they all seem to be faring okay so far. They may have been grounded for the last week but they’re by no means slouches. They’ve kept a good pace and there’s been very little talkback. They have another two days of jungle trekking and he knows that as the days go on the morale will go down but so far he’s impressed by his new unit.

He’s almost turned away from the group to find his sergeant when he spots a head of blonde hair. Danny’s lost in conversation, as usual it would seem, with Meka and he wonders how Danny can have so much to talk about. Apparently, Danny says something funny just then because a laugh startles out of Hanamoa and Danny smiles with pride at his friend’s reaction. For a second, he wants to join them and see what Danny’s talking about but he quickly pushes the impulse aside, reminding himself that he has a job to do.

He can’t help but be intrigued by the man. From everything he’s seen so far, his only real friend is Meka but he has no problems sharing laughs and insults in equal parts with the rest of the squad. He read the whole units files so he knows that Danny- and Meka-were some of the first replacements and it seems like he’s been a good soldier since he arrived. There are no commendations in his file, just a couple of notes that he’s “resistant to authority figures” and that he “shows promise”. Steve could read between the lines well enough to see that what his file really said was that Danny’s a pain in the ass, but he’s good at what he does.

He looks away from Danny, scanning over his men once more before going to find Ward to figure out how much ground they’ve covered today. Steve finds him chatting with a couple other men from the group about baseball but the conversation stops when he approaches.

“Sir?” Ward asks when he sees him, his Midwestern drawl coming through and making the word sound lazy. Steve can hear in his voice how reluctant he is to cut his break shorter than everyone else's.

“Let’s get back to work,” Steve says and the rest of the small group gets up to leave the two of them alone.

Steve’s pleasantly surprised to find that they’ve covered almost a mile since they got dropped off and that they’re closer than he expected to one of the branches of the Mekong river. If they can keep the same pace they’ve been doing, they should be able to reach the river tributary by the end of tomorrow.

“Sir, we’ve had reports of suspected Vietcong activity in this area,” Ward tells him, circling the area where the river branches. “Command thinks that the Vietcong are setting up bunkers to target the ships traveling along the river.”

“Makes sense,” he says, eyeing that area of the map. It’s on the banks of one of the busier parts of the river and if they could cut off trade through the branch, they could cut off supplies to several smaller villages downstream. “Are there any confirmed-” he starts but shouting cuts him off before he can finish his question.

He turns around, hand on his gun, expecting to hear an explosion or gunfire, but there’s only more shouting. He catches sight of a couple of guys on their feet, swatting themselves. “ _ Sonuvabitch! _ ” one of the guys yells, swatting his arm and flicking something to the ground, stomping on it in anger.

“It’s the red ants, sir,” Ward informs him, as the men start to pick up their things and move away from that area, “They hide out on the leaves, their bite hurts worse than a bullet.”

Steve doesn’t quite believe him but he can see the angry, red bites where the men have rolled up their sleeves. “I guess we better not stay here long then,” Steve says to himself. Once he an Ward finish plotting their course he yells to the unit to move out. They groan but do as he says and Steve tries to be a little more observant of the foliage as they make their way further into the jungle.

\---

Danny is more than ready to go back to the ship, and he knows that he’s not the only one. By the end of the day, they’ve barely covered two miles of terrain and they’ve found another three booby traps. The scouts had managed to find them before they went off, but even though they had managed to disarm each of them, they had all been on edge for the rest of the day. Add having to walk through the thick undergrowth and battle the local wildlife, and Danny is ready to drop by the time McGarrett calls them to a stop for the day.

“You lookin’ a little tired there, Danno,” Meka teases as he takes off his pack and tumbles gracelessly onto his ass.

“I was made to live in the city Meka, concrete and blacktop. Not to slump through the jungle all day,” He complains, stretching out his leg and grimacing when it starts to cramp. He can feel the sweat pooling at the base of his spine from the humidity but he’d rather be sweaty than risk exposing any more of his skin than necessary to the red ants and mosquitos.

“It’s not so bad,” Meka says with a shrug. He looks fresh as daisies, and for a moment Danny hates him because of it. What he wouldn’t give for a nice long, hot shower.

“You’re used to this you bastard, you had pineapple fields and volcanoes to train in, I trained thirty minutes outside of Trenton.”

“You have weird ideas about what Hawaiian life is like brah,” Meka laughs, then perks up. Before Danny can see what he’s looking at, Meka is calling for McGarrett to come join them and he’s staring up at his commander. “McGarrett, as kamaaina tell this haole about real island life.”

“Shoots, brah, kamaaina know island life is da kine,” McGarrett says with a laid-back drawl that Danny has never heard him use before. When he doesn’t say anything McGarrett laughs and turns back to Meka, “Make moe moe bruddah,” he says, and then just like that he’s gone, slipping back into his rigid demeanor as he walks away.

Danny turns back to Meka flabbergasted, to see that his friend is barely keeping in his laughter. “I  _ dare _ you to tell me what he said,” Danny challenges him but Meka just bursts out laughing. Somewhere in the distance, he swears he can hear McGarrett laughing too.

\---

Sunrise comes too early and by the time he feels Meka shake him awake, Danny’s already covered in sweat. He blinks his eyes to clear the grit from them as his gaze wanders over the rest of the camp. A couple of guys are still crawling out of their hammocks or, like him, struggling to their feet after sleeping on the hard jungle floor, and some are already eating their rations before they need to move out.

He grabs his helmet off of the ground and smiles when he sees his picture of Grace tucked into the inside lining. He adjusts it before putting his helmet back on his head and going to find someone with a hot pack he can warm his rations with.

“Mornin’ Danno, glad you could join us today. Did you get enough beauty sleep?” McElroy laughs as he joins their group.

“Shut up Lewis, you could stand with some more beauty sleep,” he bitches back, claiming the hot pack when someone takes their food off.

The morning passes much as the rest of the mornings on patrol do, McGarrett and Ward check the maps while everyone packs up their gear, double checks their weapons and tries to clean up as best they can. Then they start walking.

He figures that by the time he can go back to the academy and finish his training he can just skip doing his beat. When he gets back home he’ll be an expert at patrol, and finding gang bangers in a city must be a thousand times easier than trying to find a single Vietcong soldier in the entire Rung Sat. At least the gang bangers don’t build booby traps.

McGarrett holds up a hand to halt the platoon, stopping him from falling into his daydreams of home and immediately setting him on alert. He’s in the middle of the pack today and the proximity to McGarrett allows him to watch every detail as he takes in the jungle before him. He crouches with a hand on his gun and everyone else follows, peering into the foliage in front of them, waiting. McGarrett gives the signal to move forward and Danny raises his rifle, peering down the sight as he creeps through the underbrush.

A few feet away he can see a clearing in the trees, just the barest hint of activity. Everyone waits for McGarrett's signal before they approach and Danny watches as he scans the area for any sign of movement. McGarrett looks even more intimidating than usual as he unholsters his gun, his thousand-yard stare fixed on the camp, and signals for them to move in.

They go slowly, moving forward as one with their guns raised. Danny keeps one eye out for booby traps and he knows that everyone else is doing the same, knowing that it wouldn’t be against the Vietcong to rig their own camp. He’s calm as he searches the little lean-to that they’ve made, quickly clearing it and moving on, walking past the still smoldering fire until he’s reached the other side of the camp. When they’ve determined that there’s no one there, they all lower their weapons.

“Take a look around, see if you can find anything useful,” McGarrett orders and they start to rifle through the few areas where something could be hidden while McGarrett radios in the camps’ position.

Danny barely has time to head back to check the lean-to again before a bomb explodes just at the edge of the camp. His gun is up before he thinks about it and he slowly moves towards the explosion. He can’t see that anyone is missing and everyone else on the end of the line seems to be looking around confusedly. They all nod that they’re okay as they start to move back into the jungle. It doesn’t take long before someone calls out and Danny moves towards the sound.

He arrives just before McGarrett does to see Bugs and Mickey staring down at a body. No, not a body, Danny realizes when he takes a closer look. It’s a Vietnamese kid, laying on the ground covered in dirt and his own blood and struggling to breathe. His body’s been torn apart by the explosion and Danny realizes that the kid had tripped his own booby trap as he was trying to get away.

The boy doesn’t ask them for help and Danny knows that by the time Doc did anything, it would be too little too late. So the four of them watch in silence as a boy not more than fifteen years old draws his last wet, gasping breaths before he sighs and goes still. Danny closes his eyes when the boy stops breathing and when he opens them again, McGarrett is crouching over the body and they watch as he reaches out and gently closes the child's eyes.

“Let’s go,” McGarrett says quietly, leading them back to camp. Danny follows behind him, wondering what kind of war this is, where kids who deserve to be playing and learning get blown up instead. “We’re moving out,” McGarrett announces to the rest of the platoon once they regroup.

Just like Danny figured, there was nothing of value for them at the camp.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Follow me on [Tumblr](http://erandri.tumblr.com/)!


	3. Ship Life

Danny's half asleep on deck, lounging in a chair that's been pilfered from somewhere on the ship and enjoying the quiet of the night when he hears someone drop into the chair next to him. He turns his head, trying to make out who’s joined him but the only light source is behind them and Danny all Danny can see is the outline of a person.

“I figured you'd be playing poker with the rest of the guys?” the figure asks and Danny instantly recognizes McGarrett.

“I've been banned from poker night,” he explains, relaxing back into his seat, “I guess they got sick of me taking all their money. How come you aren't playing?”

“Got sick of losing all my money,” McGarrett jokes and Danny snorts.

“I figured you’d have a great poker face, what with that thousand yard stare and all.”

“I do have a great poker face. It’s winning that I have trouble with.”

“I never had that problem, my Ma’s an absolute cardshark. She gets it from my Nonna who I’m sure got it from her Ma.”

“I’ve never been any good at cards. Now, my sister, she could probably cheat you out of everything you own,” McGarrett says.

“You have a sister?” Danny asks, surprised. This is the first time McGarrett has said anything about his family and Danny was starting to wonder if he had one or if he was just spawned in some government lab with all the other perfect looking army guys.

“Yeah, she grew up in Vegas with my aunt,” McGarrett says and immediately shuts himself up. Sensing that McGarrett isn’t going to share anymore, and not wanting what’s so far been a perfectly decent conversation to become awkward, Danny does what he does best and fills the silence.

“I got two sisters, Stella and Bridget. Pains in my ass the both of ‘em,” Danny complains, feeling the tension dissipate, “Bridget I got on with pretty good with, but Stella, she’s a year older than me and she never let me forget it. Even in her letters she’s insufferable, you’d think being in a war zone would get me some sympathy.”

Danny turns to look at McGarrett and is shocked to find that he’s actually listening to him ramble on. “And then there’s my brother Matty,” he goes on, “I’ve always been the one to get him out of his messes. Fights at school, shoplifting, arguing with Ma and Pa, I’ve always had to watch out for him. But now he’s gonna be a big shot on Wall Street, so I guess it was worth it.”

“You have a daughter, don’t you?” McGarrett asks and Danny beams. He’s pretty sure it’s a Pavlovian response now, every time someone brings up Grace.

“Yeah, my little Gracie,” he pulls a picture out of his pocket and shows it to Steve. It’s of him and Grace at the beach, her in his lap and a sand castle in front of them. It’s the last picture he has with her. They had gone down the shore together just before his deployment and spent the day doing all the fun stuff that he used to do when he was a kid. She was too little for most of the rides but he won her a cheap stuffed bunny that Rachel says she still refuses to let out of her sight.

“Cute,” McGarrett says, taking the picture so that he can hold it closer in the low light.

“Yeah, thankfully she gets that all from her mother,” Danny says, taking the picture back and looking down at it. It’s starting to fade from how much he’s handled it.

“I don’t know about that,” Steve says so matter of factly that Danny can feel the tip of his ears heating. He doesn’t dare look over, so he focuses on a constellation- one he always forgets the name of- and keeps talking. After a while, he chances a look at McGarrett and swears he can see him smiling in the light of the moon as he goes on about his family.

\---

Steve isn’t sure how it happened, but he misses Danny talking. Every night the guys in the unit play poker- which he’s finding out is most nights thanks to a lack of other entertainment on board- he and Danny find each other and talk. Well, he can at least admit to himself that it’s him that finds Danny.

Now though, they’re on another deployment and he’s lying awake on the jungle floor wishing he was listening to Danny, sitting in those two old chairs on the ship's deck. All around him are the sounds of the unit sleeping, breaking up the buzz of the bugs flying around them. Knowing that he’s not going to get to sleep anytime soon, he decides to at least be useful and check in on the men on patrol.

Don Johnson is sitting closest to him, staring out into the jungle. Steve asks how he’s doing and he responds, but it’s clear that Don has no desire to chat with him so he moves on. Meka Hanamoa is on the other side of the camp and he happily invites Steve to sit with him.

“Hey, Lieutenant. Reminds ya a little bit of home, doesn’t it?” Meka asks him, staring almost wistfully at the trees.

“Yeah, a little bit,” he agrees, looking at the jungle and trying to pretend that he’s back home.

“My dad and I used to go camping all the time, we couldn’t afford to do much more, but I loved it. I loved being out in nature with him.”

“My dad and I used to fix up cars,” Steve says once Meka trails off, “well, one car; an old Mercury Montclair. It was pretty beat up when we got it but we would work on her all the time trying to get her running again.”

“You ever finish?”

“No, I left Hawaii before we could get everything done. But after my dad had a heart attack about a year ago, I went back home to help him out and it was still there in the garage, looking exactly the same as when I left.”

“Well, I hope you get to work on it again,” Meka says, clapping him on the shoulder. “I hear you and Danny have been talking a lot.”

“Yeah, I guess so,” Steve agrees, knowing full well that he talks to Danny the most out of anyone on the ship. He’s pretty sure it’s the same for Danny.

“Good,” Meka says and they fall into silence.

Sensing he probably won’t get another opportunity as good as this one, Steve decides to ask a question that’s been bugging him since he and Danny started talking. “Can I ask you something, about Danny?” Danny said that he and Meka met on the airplane to Vietnam, so if anyone could give him the answers, it’d be the man sitting next to him.

“Uh, yeah, I guess.”

“Grace’s mother, Danny can’t talk about his daughter enough, but I haven’t heard a word about her mother.”

“Rachel,” Meka says, his friendly tone becoming something colder. He glances quickly behind them then drops his voice, like he’s worried that Danny’s listening to them, “They met Danny’s senior year of college and Danny was over the moon for her. They were going steady when Rachel got pregnant with Grace during Danny’s first year at the police academy. Now, Danny hasn’t said this exactly but I know him well enough now to piece it together. Rachel didn’t want to be a stay at home mom and she sure as hell didn’t want to be married to a cop. Well, Danny was so in love with her that he decided to give up his career- and his parents were not happy about that. He dropped out of the academy, they had Grace and tried settling down.”

“So what went wrong?”

“Dunno for sure. Things started to go bad, then Danno got drafted and about a month after he gets here a letter comes,” Meka continues and Steve already knows what he’s going to say next, “Dear Danny, I’ve met someone else. He told me that he thinks that guy is the reason why Rachel would never marry him.”

He glances back at Danny sleeping a couple feet away, blissfully unaware that they’re talking about him. Steve had liked Danny before but now he thinks he’s starting to understand him.

“Hey, don’t tell him I told you. He doesn’t want the whole ship feeling bad for him,” Steve agrees not to say anything and they once again fall into silence.

\---

The line for the PX wraps all the way around the corner by the time Steve joins it. All of the platoons have been out on search and destroy missions and they’ve all missed the latest mail drop off. He’s hoping for a letter from Aunt Deb, letting him know how Mary’s doing. Last he knew she was off riding around California with some hippies protesting the war.

The line inches forward and he hears footsteps coming up behind him. “Expecting anything good?” Danny asks. Steve turns around to see him leaning against the wall behind up, staring disdainfully at the long line ahead of them.

“A letter from my Aunt Deb,” he says as a couple guys with letters in their hand turn the corner, “You?”

“Dunno, there’s usually something, and I’ve got a letter to send to Grace.”

They fall into a comfortable silence as they make their way through the line. It isn’t until he’s made it to the counter that he speaks again. There’s no letter for him, but Danny gets a large package that he immediately tears into like a kid on Christmas morning.

“Want one?” Danny asks, gathering up his package and holding something pastel out to him.

“What is it?” he asks, eying the wrapped item as they start walking.

“It’s salt water taffy, you neanderthal.” Steve takes the treat and eyes it as Danny digs into his package again and pulls out a green taffy, unwrapping it and popping it in his mouth. “My Ma sent them to me, she and Pa go down to the shore every year and buy bags for all of us.”

“That’s nice,” he says, chewing on the taffy. The flavor bursts on his tongue and makes his mouth water. “I heard they got a new movie in,” he says when they’ve almost reached his room.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, you wanna watch it tonight?” He asks, trying to play it casual and feeling like he’s missed it by a mile.

“You gonna have me back home by ten?” Danny says flirtily then laughs it off as a joke before Steve can say anything, “You buy the popcorn and I’ll be there.”

The reach his room then and Danny leaves him at his door. Steve watches as he walks down the hall, his package under his arm and a sway in his step.

\---

The movie had been Audrey Hepburn’s latest comedy. Steve had gotten them seats in the back row and some popcorn to share and he had done as he promised and brought the taffy. He sat next to Steve as the movie started, maybe a little closer than necessary but the room was crowded so he ignored it. It wasn’t until halfway through the movie when he felt Steve’s arm go around him that he started to take in the situation.

He was practically in Steve’s lap they were sitting so close, and they were the only two in the room sharing a popcorn. Steve had his arm around him and Danny had unashamedly leaned in closer to get comfortable. Now though, he pulls away, trying to get some space between them and wondering if anyone else noticed. Steve doesn’t take his arm off of the back of his chair and Danny sits through the rest of the movie, acutely aware of its presence, but he doesn’t ask Steve to move it.

As soon as the end credits roll Danny is out of his seat, making some lame excuse about needing some air. He quickly makes his way to the smoking area on deck, watching the horizon and breathing in the fresh air. Off in the distance, down the river, he can see the occasional bomb going off as a platoon comes into contact with the Vietcong. He’s not sure which platoon was deployed there, he’s just glad that it’s not him.

He pulls a cigarette out of his carton and lights it, taking a long drag and closing his eyes. Tonight had felt too much like a date but what scares him more is how much he wants it to have been one.

“Those things’ll kill ya, you know?” Steve says from behind him and he turns to see him leaning against the hatchway.

“Oh yeah? Well so will a bullet, yet here I stand,” Danny says huffily, waving his hand around them and trying to control his racing heart.

“Are you always this optimistic?” Steve comes to stand next to him, leaning against the rail and Danny tries to distract himself from the heat of Steve’s body next to his. As if on cue a plane sends off a volley of missiles, and they watch as the trees shake and fall in the hedgerow.

“Every damn day,” he says with a laugh, turning to Steve and sticking his cigarette back in his mouth. Steve watches as he takes a long drag and Danny’s pulse jumps under the heat of his gaze.

Steve leans closer and for a fleeting moment, Danny wonders if Steve is going to kiss him, almost hopes that Steve will. Steve reaches out to him and Danny holds his breath as he pulls the cigarette from his lips and stubs it out on the metal rail, “I don’t like the taste,” Steve tells him, leaning closer so that the words are quiet and intimate. Steve is so close that he can smell the faint remains of his soap, any closer and it might be considered indecent and Danny is so tempted to just lean forward that little bit.

He doesn’t.

“You should get some sleep, we’re headed out early tomorrow,” Steve says, in his normal voice, pulling away and it’s like a spell is breaking. Danny watches Steve leave until he disappears into the ship before he turns back to the horizon.

“What are you getting yourself into?” he mutters to himself, taking a deep breath and trying to calm his racing heart. In the distance another volley of bombs explode; he tries not to read into it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Follow me on [Tumblr](http://erandri.tumblr.com/)!


	4. The Mekong Delta

“You are gonna hate this brah,” Meka laughs as soon as Danny joins him on deck.

“Why?” Danny asks, only half paying attention as he finishes securing his bag.

“Because,” Meka says, pausing to get Danny attention, “That’s our ride.” Danny looks where Meka’s pointing to see a large transport helicopter waiting on the landing pad and he feels his heart drop.

“You’re kidding, right?” Danny asks, not wanting to go anywhere near the flying death trap.

“No such luck,” Meka says, shrugging his shoulders like he isn’t getting a kick out of this, “I’ll let you hold my hand if you get too scared.” As if to prove his point, Meka holds his hand out. Danny slaps it away which only causes him to laughs more.

“Something the matter, Danno?” Steve says behind him and Danny jumps.

“Nothing sir,” he says, “Just talking.”

Steve eyes him like he knows he’s lying but Danny refuses to tell him that he’s scared of flying. Fortunately, the rest of the company comes out on the deck just then, and Steve leaves him and Meka to give the group their briefing. On his way he makes sure to brush against Danny, excusing himself as he moves through the group of men. Danny glares at the back of Steve’s head as he walks away because they both know full well that he just as easily could have walked around them all. He doesn’t have to see his face to know that Steve is smirking but luckily, no one else seems to have noticed the contact.

“We’re moving out of the jungle,” Steve starts as soon as he’s in front of the group. A round of cheers erupt from the men but Steve waves them down so that he can continue, “We’re going to start searching villages along some of the tributaries.” That elicits a groan but Steve doesn’t pay it any mind as he finishes his speech.

When he’s done and everyone’s made sure that everyone’s ready, Steve leads the way up to the helicopter pad. They follow in a line after him up the steps, Danny eyeing the contraption the entire way.

He files into the hulking frame and takes a seat on the bench near the front, directly across from Steve. The rest of the company processes in until they’re pressed shoulder to shoulder along the seats and the ramp starts to rise, closing them in. The metal rattles as the propellers start and Danny grabs the bench seat, holding onto it with a white-knuckle grip.

“It’s alright, these things fly dozens of missions every day” Meka whispers reassuringly, nudging him with his arm to let him know that he’s there for him.

“It’s not flying I’m worried about,” Danny tells him, digging through his pockets to find his cigarettes, “It’s getting shot at and falling out of the sky in a fiery ball.”

“Why? You can get shot at just as easily on the ground,” Meka says which, in its own strange way, Danny finds reassuring.

“Fair point,” he concedes, digging a cigarette out of his pack with shaking fingers and sticking it between his lips while he fumbles for his lighter.

He looks up once he grabs it and finds himself meeting Steve’s gaze. Steve quirks an eyebrow, pointedly eyeing the unlit cigarette. Danny stops and sighs, Steve’s words from the night before coming back to mind.  _ He doesn’t like the taste _ , he grumbles to himself, but he pulls the cigarette from his mouth and angrily slides it back into the pack.

“Hey Meka, you smoke Lucky Strikes, right?” Danny asks, even though he already knows that they’re his friends preferred brand. Meka looks at him and Danny shoves the whole pack at him, “happy early birthday.”

“Thanks, brah,” Meka says, obviously confused but not willing to look a gift horse in the mouth as he pockets the cigarettes.

“I’m trying to quit,” he says, ostensibly to Meka but he knows that Steve’s heard when he sees him smiling down into his terrain map. The warm feeling he gets from that is almost enough to make him not miss the familiar feeling of the pack in his uniform pocket.

\---

Walking through the villages is like nothing else Danny has experienced. From the entrance of the hooches, the villagers smile pleasantly at them as they search for Vietcong propaganda. Children run around them in the street, talking excitedly in Vietnamese and tugging on their uniforms to get their attention. Danny can’t help but smile and play with them-he’s always had a soft spot for kids-but in the back of his mind he knows that any one of them could belong to the Vietcong.

The whole village could be Vietcong and none of them would be the wiser.

“Clear the perimeter,” Steve says once they get into the heart of the village, and divides everyone into groups.

Danny and Meka get paired with a couple of replacements named Alan and Lewis and they head east until they reach the last hooch. He and Meka split up to go one way, sending Alan and Lewis the other as they start to walk the perimeter.

They finish just as the sun starts to set and regroup back at the village center for dinner. Some of the villagers offer food of their own, rice and fish mostly, and the children try their best to wheedle away any morsel of the units ration packs. They may think the rations taste like shit but to the kids, they’re foreign delicacies and Danny has no problem trading his canned meat for some fresh fish.

They make a fire to heat their food on and spend the rest of the afternoon around it, trading off who’s on watch so they can all get some downtime. A couple of the kids join them, but most of the villagers keep their distance as the men start to swap stories. Bugs had gotten a letter from his Ma just before they flew out so he reads it aloud to them. It doesn’t say much, Bug’s is from a podunk town in the middle of Iowa so there’s not much there to talk about, but she manages to fill a letter full of the family gossip. They’re all laughing at the story of Bug’s little sister punching a boy for trying to hold her hand when suddenly he feels someone staring at him.

He turns to see Steve sitting on the other side of the fire, leaning against a tree and just watching him. There’s a heat in his eyes that sends Danny’s heart racing. When he looks back up Steve gives him a wink that’s barely perceptible in the dim glow of the fire before Steve turns his attention back to his book.

Danny turns back to the group and pretends to pay attention, but his mind is far away, lost in thoughts of the miles of tanned skin that he’d like to explore with his hands, his teeth, his tongue, any part of himself that he can get on McGarrett.

\---

They spend the day doing some work around the village. He assigns half of the guys to help Doc treat some of the sick people in the village while he takes the rest to fix up the old, rundown schoolhouse. It’s not much to look at, but they replace the boards that have begun to rot away with new lumber and seal up some of the gaps in the walls.

When they finish the school looks as good, or at least as good as ten guys with minimal construction experience can do. The kids seem to love it anyway, running around the building and playing on the furniture they fixed up with the leftover lumber, so at least they did a little bit of good. He just hopes that the Vietcong won’t move in and take over the school once they’re gone.

He lets the guys go once they’re done, and he heads off to find Ward so that they can report back to base. 

“I had Mickey save us some of the good stuff,” Ward says as they head back to the group once they finish their report. As soon as Mickey sees them, he produces a plate full of rice and fresh vegetables that has Steve’s stomach growling, “Figured you’d like ‘em,” Ward says, dividing the food into two and digging into his own plate.

Steve takes a bite of cucumber, savoring the taste of food that hasn’t been preserved for months. “You’re a hell of a guy,” he compliments, eating a big forkful of rice.

“Thanks very much, Lieutenant. Did you hear about the Army’s latest game?” Ward segways and when Steve shakes his head he launches into a report of the game. It’s one of the things they found that they had in common. Ward was a couple of years behind him at the academy but he played on the football team after Steve had graduated. Ward had cut his teeth on stories of Steve’s plays and he loves nothing more than to dissect each Army game with him.

By the time Ward finishes his play-by-play, they’ve thoroughly examined every mistake the team made and gone over everything that they would have done better if they had been playing. “There’s a home game next week,” Ward says, standing up and stretching, “I hear some of the Navy boys got a radio to listen to it. They said we can join ‘em.”

“I look forward to it,” Steve says, hoping that they’ll be on the ship and available to listen to it by then. Ward waves goodnight and lays down to go to sleep. It’s only then that Steve realizes how late it’s gotten while they were talking. The moon has fully risen and the men are all sleeping peacefully around the smoldering fire.

He looks around and spots Danny sitting watch just outside of their little group, perched on a fallen tree and facing out towards the rice fields. He’s bathed in the light of the moon, and Steve is captivated by the way the firelight makes it almost seem like he’s glowing. For a moment, Danny seems unreal as he sits sentry in the darkness, and suddenly Steve feels unable to stay away from him any longer. It makes something twist in him with longing as gets to his feet and walks over, studying Danny as he sits there.

Up close the light changes Danny even more, the glow of the dwindling fire making his features softer. “We don’t have views like this in Jersey,” Danny says quietly, interrupting his thoughts, his gaze never wavering from the view in front of him.

“We do in Hawaii,” he says just a quiet, sitting down on the fallen tree maybe a little too close. Danny doesn’t complain and if anyone in the unit says something he’ll blame it on the coolness of the night.

“Tell me about it?” Danny asks.

“It’s beautiful,” is the first thing that comes to mind but he knows that that’s not good enough. Everyone who’s been to Hawaii would say it’s beautiful. “I grew up on the ocean,” he starts again. Danny turns to him, eyes wide with curiosity, encouraging him to go on.

“I used to sneak out my window and go night surfing with my friends, we would all pile into my buddy’s old beat up truck and drive to the North Shore in the middle of the night,” he says, memories of listening to music as they raced down the empty highway as fresh in his mind as if they happened yesterday, “If felt a lot like this. Everything was quiet in a way it never is when the tourists are out. We knew a lot of places on the island like that, we kept them to ourselves so the haoles wouldn’t ruin them. There was one place we always used to go to for bonfires in the summer,” Steve says and then he’s lost in the memories, recounting stories of the things that he and his friends used to do to pass the time in high school. Danny is quiet the entire time, entranced by his tales of spearfishing and racing outriggers.

“Why did you leave?” Danny asks and he pauses, tries to figure out what he’s going to say.

“My mom died,” he admits. He can hear in his voice the years of grief that still haven’t quite healed.

“I’m sorry,” Danny says. There’s not much else he can say in the face of that, but unlike most of the other people that try to console him about his mother’s death, Steve believes him. He believes that Danny would rather take a bullet than have anyone he cares about suffer the loss of a loved one.

“It was a car accident,” he tells Danny, for lack of anything better to say, “but my dad was a cop. He was convinced that my mom’s death was deliberate. That someone had planted a bomb in the car. It drove him crazy trying to prove it, but all he ever found was scraps of junk. A postcard, some pictures, an old key. He was convinced it all meant something more.”

“And you aren’t?”

“I think that after living through World War II he just couldn’t handle another senseless death, especially not when it was my mother. So he tried to make it make sense,” he admits for the first time. He’s thought it countless times before, first in anger and then- as he grew older and went to war himself- with understanding, but this is the first time he’s said it aloud. He sees Danny open his mouth to say something, offer condolences or worse, comfort, but he doesn’t want them. “He sent Mary and I away,” he says over Danny, not sure why it even comes out other than Danny makes him want to open up about himself. “He sent Mary to live with our Aunt Deb and he sent me to the military academy.”

“Is that why you joined the Army? Because he made you?”

“He wanted me to join the Navy, to be like him and my grandfather,” he admits, “I was so angry at him for sending us away that I decided, if he wanted me to join the Navy then I’d join the Army instead.”

That gets a snort out of Danny, who immediately tries to hide his chuckle with a cough. It doesn’t fool him but it does release some of the tension in the air, and he starts laughing at himself. Looking back now it seems so petty, to join the Army just to spite his father, but it worked out. He got to meet Danny because of it, and now he can’t imagine making any other choice.

“Tell me about your sister, and your Aunt Deb,” Danny says and Steve is grateful for the change in subject.

“Mary is a wild child, but you would love my Aunt Deb. She sang with Sinatra once,” he says and Danny lights up, just like Steve knew he would.

They spend the next couple of hours like that, huddled together on an old log, Danny listening as Steve tells him about Hawaii, his family, the Academy, anything he can think of to keep the conversation going. He knows that in a couple of hours Danny’s shift will be over and he’ll be relieved of duty, that tomorrow they’ll be off to another village and back to being in a war, but right now none of that matters. Right now, they can share this moment together underneath the light of the moon, and pretend it will last forever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

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	5. Camp Bearcat

As soon as the helicopter drops them back off on the ship a runner tells Steve to report to Captain Grover’s office. Danny watches him leave, wondering what could be so important it can’t wait but Steve does without question.

“You have something, right… here,” Meka says, poking him in the forehead hard enough that it hurts.

“What was that for,” Danny yells, slapping Meka’s hand away and rubbing the spot.

“You had a look,” Meka says with a shrug, “I didn’t want your face to stick that way, you’re hard enough to look at as it is.”

“Like you’re such a looker,” Danny quips back, pushing his friend out of the way so that he can head down to the bunks. He’s in desperate need of a shower.

“Honestly man, why the long face?” Meka asks, trailing after him as they enter the ship. They’re out of the sun but there’s no relief inside. Hundreds of soldiers packed into a metal can makes for a whole lot of heat and a whole lot of stench.

“It makes me nervous when he gets called away like that.”

“Come on Danno, you keep talking like that and you’ll make me jealous.”

“You know you’ll always be my favorite,” Danny says with a sickeningly sweet voice and drops his bag on his bunk. Meka throws a dirty shirt at him but he catches it easily and tosses it back onto Meka’s bunk.

“Don’t unpack yet boys,” Ward says, coming down the aisle towards them, “I just got word from McGarrett that we’re heading out in two hours. Camp Bearcat is finally ready for us!” Ward moves quickly down the aisles, shouting to anyone in the company to pack their gear and get ready to move out.

He and Meka both groan as Ward disappears from view. “So much for that shower,” Meka says as he starts shoving his things back into his bag.

“At least we’re finally getting off this damned ship,” Danny says as a couple more guys from the company appear and start packing their own things.

Danny is as eager as anyone to move out of the old barracks ship but that quickly fades when, after hours of traveling on boats and getting jostled around on bumpy back roads, the trucks finally drop them off in the middle of an empty field. McGarrett jumps out of the truck first and everyone follows suit, each of them looking around like maybe camp is hidden somewhere, but all there is is a tall dirt wall with an American flag waving proudly off of it.

“Building supplies are in the first three trucks, everyone start unpacking,” someone yells to the group, and he groans as it sinks in that their first task at Camp Bearcat will be to  _ build _ Camp Bearcat.

He and Meka are both handed shovels and pointed towards an area of the field where little white flags mark the perimeter where they’re supposed to dig. It doesn’t take long for them to work up a sweat and barely an hour in he’s stripping off his shirt in a futile attempt to cool himself down.

“How’s it going over here?” Steve asks and Danny looks up to see him standing on the edge of the short trench he and Meka have dug. He’s got a snarky comment on the tip of his tongue but it dies as soon as he sees Steve. He’s taken his shirt off too, but unlike Danny who’s now bare-chested, he’s got on a tan undershirt that’s soaked through with sweat and covered in dust.

Danny lets his eyes roam, taking in the way the fabric clings to every plane of Steve’s body until his gaze drifts high enough to see the tattoos on either of Steve’s shoulders-and how had he never notice Steve had tattoos? They glisten in the sun, the ink popping off of Steve’s skin and begging for Danny to taste them. He’s so lost, staring slack-jawed at Steve, that he completely forgets the question. Luckily, Meka is there to cover for him and tells Steve everything’s going well while Danny is still tongue-tied.

“Keep up the good work,” Steve says, finally seeming to notice Danny’s staring. He smiles, absolutely pleased with himself for reducing Danny to a drooling mess, before he says, “As soon as we finish building camp we’ve got a whole day’s leave in Saigon. First round’s on me,” he adds, giving Danny a look that promises a lot more than a couple rounds of bad beer. Steve leaves them then, and if Danny digs any faster afterward, well it’s just because he’s excited to see the city.

\---

Steve watches as trucks start rolling out of camp in the early afternoon, taking the men down to Saigon for their leave. It took nearly a week, but they’ve finally finished constructing camp and they can all finally enjoy some long-awaited leave time. Bugs and a couple of the men call for him to join them but, since he has reports to file and briefings to go over, he ends up being one of the lasts ones to leave camp.

They had all made plans to meet at one of the more well known American friendly bars and he finds it easily enough, tucked away just off of the main streets. The music is loud enough that he can hear it from the other side of the block, drowning out the other noises of the city at night.

For such an apparently popular bar, the place looks nearly empty from the outside. There are a couple guys having a smoke and talking by the front door but other than an elderly Vietnamese woman begging just down the street, the whole block is empty. The guys give him a nod hello as he passes them to enter the bar and quickly finds out that the only reason the street is empty is because everyone has packed themselves into the building.

He scans the bar and immediately spots a couple of men from the platoon sitting at a corner table. They wave him over and hand him a beer as he takes one of the few empty seats around the table.

“Nice of you to finally show, Lieutenant,” Mickey calls to him over the music, “We thought that Grover was going to keep you forever.”

“You can’t get rid of me that easily,” he jokes, taking a sip of the watered down beer.

Steve turns to scan the rest of the bar as the guys continue whatever conversation they were having before he walked in. He can see a couple more guys from the platoon chatting up some Vietnamese prostitutes at the bar and Gonzales and Doc have found their way over to a table with some other Mexican-Americans. He keeps scanning the crowd, trying not to get disappointed when he doesn’t spot Danny. Figuring he just hasn’t arrived yet, Steve turns back to the table and tries not to watch the door every time it opens.

“You ever play, Lieu?” Bugs asks him, pulling his attention away from the front door.

“Play what?”

“Football, boss,” one of the other guys says.

“Quarterback for West Point,” he says proudly, “We won the Army/Navy game every year I was there.” That gets him a couple of impressed whistles from the group and then he’s launching into a retelling of his senior year game, where they made a last minute play to win the game. He’s almost to the best part when Bugs looks away from him to the dance floor.

“Would you look at that sonuvabitch?” Bugs says and Steve stops his story to turn around in his seat to look at whatever has caught Bugs’ attention.

It turns out to be Danny, dancing in the middle of the dance floor with a beautiful Vietnamese call girl. It’s the first time Steve’s seen him in anything other than a uniform and he has to do a double take. The khaki pants and t-shirt are so much different from the army green they always wear and the look softens him, makes Danny look more like the boy from Jersey he is than the man thrust into war. The cockiness is still there though, the brash attitude that first caught Steve’s attention shines through in the way he dances with the woman, pulling her closer than he probably should and leading her movements with his whole body.

The song the jukebox is playing is upbeat but the way Danny is dancing makes it seem more intimate. There’s no lifting or twirling, Danny is just holding the girl as close to him and moving their bodies together. It’s indecent and by the way the girl is pressing closer to Danny, she’s obviously loving it. Steve watches them, trying to tamp down the hot flare of jealousy that surges through him.

“That lucky asshole,” Mickey says, “He’s got the prettiest girl in here eating out of the palm of his hand.”

The girl Danny’s dancing with is very attractive and it’s very obvious that she only has eyes for Danny. It’s no wonder with Danny dressing the way he has why he doesn’t have a dozen girls fawning over him.

“I bet it’s the hair,” Bugs chimes in, “they ain’t never seen a guy with yellow hair before.”

“Nah, it’s because he’s so short,” someone else jokes and they all turn back to the table, happy to poke their fun so that Steve’s the only one still watching to see the girl take Danny by the hand and lead him off the dance floor.

He’s on his feet before he realizes it, pushing his way through the crowd and trying to keep an eye on Danny. He finally manages to extract himself from the tangle of limbs and push his way up to Danny at the bar. He grabs him by the arm and drags him, complaining out the back door and into an alley.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing, Steve?” Danny asks, sounding genuinely angry with him, and yanking his arm out of his grip.

“That’s Lieutenant McGarrett, Private Williams,” he says instead of answering, his jealousy making him bark the words out like a command.

“Oh, it’s Lieutenant now?” Danny asks, stepping well into his personal space. Steve doesn’t move and they end up almost pressed chest to chest.

“What were you doing with that woman?” he asks, ignoring Danny’s question.

“I was dancing with her,  _ Lieutenant _ ,” Danny answers, challenging him. 

“I think you were compromising our entire platoon. She could be Vietcong for all you know-”

“For all you know she could be a woman looking for a good time,” Danny says, and now Steve hears it, the challenge in his voice, a tone that says Danny knew exactly what he was doing to him. There’s a fire in his eyes that Steve’s never seen and he has trouble looking away from Danny’s gaze, “Unless you have a better offer for me.”

Danny leaves the offer hanging. He doesn’t move from in front of him, just stares up at him daring him to make a move and Steve realizes that this is what they’ve been moving towards ever since he first saw Danny dancing on the ship. “You’re gonna pay for that,” he promises. There’s just enough time for him to see Danny smiling before he closes the distance between them and slams their mouths together in a bruising kiss, sliding his hands into Danny’s hair and using the grip to hold him close.

It doesn’t take long for Danny to catch on and fist his hands into Steve’s shirt. Danny opens his mouth and he slips his tongue inside, deepening their kiss and swallowing Danny’s moan. Danny pulls away for air and Steve moves his attention to Danny’s neck, laving kisses to his skin and pressing himself against Danny’s thigh so that he can feel his arousal.

“Not here,” Danny finally says, pushing him away and sounding absolutely wrecked.

Steve nods shakily and takes a breath to compose himself. “I have a room a couple block away,” he says before grabbing Danny’s hand and pulling him towards the street. He lets go before anyone can see them and tries to act normal as he turns towards the direction of his hotel. Danny walks next to him, a respectable distance away for two men. Every once in a while their arms will brush, by accident or design he’s not sure, but it keeps the thrum of excitement coursing through him until they turn the last corner and he finally sees his hotel come into view.

Danny doesn’t say anything as he leads him through the front door and puts a little more distance between them as they climb the stairs to his room. His hands shake with anticipation as he fumbles the key into the lock and gets the door open. Steve’s barely got his foot in the door before Danny shoves him inside and slams the door shut behind them, putting the chain across the door.

“Do you have any idea how long I’ve wanted to do this?” Danny asks, turning back around and stalking towards him. As he’s within reach he pulls Danny close, pressing kisses along his neck.

“Probably about as long as I’ve wanted you to,” Steve says, walking them toward the bed. He has enough time to marvel that this is actually happening and then Danny’s pulling him down, stealing his breath away with an all-consuming kiss.   
  


\---

Danny leaves Steve’s hotel room late in the afternoon, tired and aching but feeling good. They had spent almost the entire day in bed, only leaving to enjoy a hot shower together and find a place to have a late breakfast before falling back into bed once more. It had been everything he expected it to be, rough and passionate and then, once the initial need wore off, bordering on tender. And maybe he had toyed with Steve a little at the bar last night, letting that woman pull him onto the dance floor after he saw Steve come in, but the reward had been well worth the risk.

He feels happier than he’s ever been and he walks with a spring in his step to the pickup location. The guys get in a couple of jokes when they see him since his drastically improved mood makes it fairly obvious just what he’s been getting up to all day but neither their good-natured ribbing or the long, bumpy ride back to camp is enough to spoil his mood.

When the transport drops them off, the camp is bustling with men. New arrivals are digging the foundations for their own tents, some others are unloading supplies, and in the distance, he can see a group playing a pickup game of baseball.  He follows the rest of the guys through the camp, trying to remember which of the identical tents is theirs when he feels someone grab his arm. He spins to face the person, alert and ready to face off whoever it is, but when he turns he sees that it’s just Meka.

“Easy brah,” Meka soothes him, raising his hands in surrender. When Danny calms, Meka’s expression turns from placating to awkward, “Let’s take a walk?” Meka says, nodding his head towards the edge of camp where there’s no one to listen to their conversation. Danny follows him, wondering what he wants to talk about and worrying that he already knows the answer.

When they get to the edge of camp Meka stops and looks around, making sure there’s no one on the wall that can overhear them before turning to face him. He looks nervous and Danny can feel the panic starting to creep up on him, replacing the giddy feeling from earlier. “Listen, I- uh. Jesus, there’s no easy way to say this,” Meka says, dragging a hand down his face and sighing, “I saw you and McGarrett last night,” Meka blurts out, whispering the words like even though they’re both alone, someone might still be listening in on them.

“What-” Danny starts, but he can’t get the words out, can hardly concentrate from the terror coursing through him. He wants to run but even if he did, there’s nowhere that he could go.

“I saw McGarrett dragging you out of the bar and he had a look in his eye, brah. I figured I better make sure everything was alright so I followed you into the alley. I didn’t want you guys to know I was following in case it was nothing so I hung back, stayed behind the door so I could watch without you guys seeing I was there. I saw you arguing and I was about to come out and step in but then I saw him kiss you. You looked pretty okay with it so I didn’t stick around after that but then neither of you came back into the bar and no one saw you after. It wasn’t hard to put two and two together,” Meka confesses.

“We um-” Danny stutters but he doesn’t know what to say, doesn’t know what he can say without outing at least one of them.

“I’m not gonna tell anyone,” Meka promises him, putting a hand on his shoulder and looking so sincere that Danny starts to feel the panic loosen its grip on him enough that he can actually take a breath. “I don’t care brah, I got a cousin who’s like that,” Meka adds and Danny heaves a sigh of relief, feeling a weight lift off of him.

“Thank you,” he says, as sincerely as he can, hoping that Meka understands just how much it means to him.

“No problem, I actually think you two are pretty good for each other. You balance each other out, but listen, not all of the guys on the platoon are as understanding as I am. It’s a tight-knit unit and rumors travel fast. If any of them found out about you two I think a dishonorable discharge would be the least of your problems.”

“I know, I know it was stupid. It was just a one-time thing,” he says.

“Was it?” Meka asks like he doesn’t believe a word Danny’s saying.

“It has to be,” Danny tells him and Meka hums in agreement but he still looks skeptical. Neither of them makes a move to go back to the base and an awkward silence falls over them.

“So was he as good as he acts like he is?” Meka finally jokes and just like that, the tension between them is broken. Danny shoves him away, laughing as they start to walk back. Before they can get too far Danny says, “Yes, but don’t tell him that or he’ll get an even bigger head than he already has.”

“So many jokes I could make brah, so many jokes” Meka laughs, slinging an arm over his shoulders and just like that, Danny knows that they’re going to be okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

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	6. Baptism by Fire

Danny’s had a bad feeling all day, a pit in the bottom of his stomach telling him that something terrible is going to happen today. He woke up with it and as the day’s gone on it’s only gotten worse.

“You sick brah?” Meka asks, sitting down across from him in the mess hall. It’s crowded and hard to hear over the sounds of everyone talking and the tinkle of utensils scraping against plates.

“What?” Danny asks, looking up from what’s supposed to be eggs benedict but just looks like a dog threw up on his plate.

“You’re looking pale… well, paler than you normally look anyway,” Meka chuckles at his own joke but it just makes his stomach twist, “The food can’t be that bad.” As if to prove a point, Meka takes a big forkful of egg and shoves it into his mouth, chewing happily on the soggy eggs.

“I’ve got a bad feeling about today,” he admits. He feels a little foolish for being nervous about just another mission, but he’s learned to trust his gut and it’s telling him that something is wrong.

“The mission?” Meka asks, turning serious, “Or going into the rice paddies for the first time?”

“Both? I don’t know, I’ve just got this feeling that something bad is going to happen like… like maybe I’m not gonna make it back,” he admits and realizes as he says it that that’s exactly what the feeling is like. It’s just like when the riptide pulled him and Billy out to sea all those years ago. Underneath the terror had been this same assuredness, the same twisting fear that he was going to die that day.

“Hey,” Meka says forcefully, “You listen to me, you are not going to die out there. You hear me? I don’t give a damn what your gut is telling you, it’s wrong.”

“Okay,” Danny agrees meekly and Meka seems to calm.

“I got a letter from Amy yesterday,” Meka says changing the subject so quickly it takes Danny a moment to understand what he’s said.

“What’d it say?”

“She’s pregnant,” Meka says, smiling so wide Danny wonders if it hurts, “She didn’t want to tell me until she was sure, and then the letter took weeks to find me. She’s almost six months along now. It’s a boy.”

“That’s fantastic!” Danny says, overjoyed for his friend. He stands up and hugs Meka, congratulating him again.

“Listen, when we get out of here I want you to come and visit to see him, and you gotta teach me all the dad stuff like how to change a diaper and how to feed him cuz I’m hopeless. Amy, she’s great with kids but me, I’m-”

“Hey, I’m here for you brother,” he cuts off Meka’s rambling, “Whatever you need.” Meka smiles at him, pride and nervousness flashing across his face, but he looks so damn happy that it hurts.

The twisting feeling doesn’t go away.

\---

They get dropped off at the edge of rice fields stretching for acres and acres in front of them. Wide pools of rice paddies separated every hundred feet or so by a small dirt berm, barely wide enough to walk across. Small hooches are scattered all around the field but there doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to their placement.

He’s not sure which he hates more, here or the jungle.

Steve signals for them to spread out and they all do so. Company B is a couple hundred yards to the north, Company A even further north, and to the south is the other half of Company C in rubber patrol boats. Slowly, everyone assumes their positions along the bank, just like they went over in their briefing.

He ends up near the end of the line, following the river as it borders the field. Just over his shoulder, he can make out the patrol boats that will follow just behind the line. In front of him lies the expanse of empty fields that they’ll have to cross. Danny stares across the distance and wishes that he was closer to Meka.

Danny sees the line begin to move and he starts walking, stepping onto the rice sprouts and padding through the shallow water. He keeps the grip on his gun tight, ready for anything, but the only movement is from the men as they trudge forward. They’ve made it through half of the field when the gnawing feeling comes back. He tries pushing it off, blaming it on the fact that there’s a hundred of them marching through an empty field but soon enough he notices what has his instincts going haywire.

They hadn’t been able to see from the drop point, but the river bends up ahead, and while they’ve been walking in a straight line, the river has slowly been doubling back on them, cutting off the line and putting the support boats in front of them. He looks to his right where Gonzales, on the very end of the line, is realizing the same thing.

Danny starts running to the river bank to try to get the boats’ attention but none of them seem to realize that they’re now ahead of the line. Gonzales notices him running towards the shore and joins him. They splash through the water together, and just as Danny opens his mouth to yell to the skipper, the first shot is fired.

Everything else seems to stop as Danny watches one of the men on the boat jerks before he drops to his knees on the floor of the boat. He stays kneeling like that for just a second before he slowly falls forward and out of sight. Then, all at once, everything bursts into motion.

The line starts to return fire as the skipper throws the little boat into reverse, knocking all of the men off balance as the boat lurches, protesting the sudden change. Water splashes up as bullets pound into the river around where the boat should have been and just as the men regain their balance, the spray of bullets moves.

Danny watches as two more men fall, one into the boat and one into the river where his body slowly floats past them. Behind him the field has erupted into a roar of gunfire, the entire line is throwing everything they have at the one patch of trees ahead of them.

He and Gonzales stand in the middle of the crossfire, watching helplessly as more and more bullets seek the small craft. Behind them, someone calls out for a medic.

Slowly, Danny gets over the shock and drops to cover, pulling Gonzales down beside him when the kid doesn’t move. He fires a couple of shots at the group of trees but wherever the Vietcong has bedded down, it’s too thick of a cover for his gun to do anything. The first sounds of mortar fire sound out from his left, the distinctive  _ thwunk _ of the rounds being fired.

The mortars draw the attention away from the boat and onto the line and suddenly there are cries for a medic all across the field.

The line tries to advance closer but most are beaten back by the oppressive gunfire. Those that do make it forward soon find themselves stranded between the two sides. Too far away from the enemy to do any good and too far away from the line to receive any help.

He and Gonzales take cover behind one of the berms, firing at where they think the Vietcong shooting came from. He darts a glance over to the patrol boat to see that it’s mostly sunk, the rubber pontoons popped by the gunfire, and the men are struggling to get to shore.

Danny slaps Gonzales on the arm to get his attention and then points in the direction of the riverbank. Gonzales nods in understanding and they start crawling towards the river. Every once in a while a bullet will spray up water from around them but none of the bullets find their target.

As soon as they’re close enough, Danny pushes himself to his feet and sprints the last couple of feet to the river, sliding into the water and behind the meager cover of the riverbank. The rocks in the mud scrape at him as he slides but he pays the pain no mind. Beside him, Gonzales slides down under cover, ending up half in the river by the time he comes to a stop. 

Danny can see bodies scattered in the water. Most are still, lying face down in the dark water as they slowly drift downstream, but a couple survivors are trying to swim to land.

“Danno,” one of the men calls to him, and Danny sees John Davies struggling to swim to shore with one arm. Suddenly a round of bullets lands in the water around John and in his surprise he slips under the water.

John pops back up a second later, sputtering and coughing just as another volley of bullets is fired at him.

“Stop moving,” Danny yells to him, hoping that if the Vietcong think they’ve killed him, they’ll turn their attention elsewhere and Danny can try to get John out of the water. John nods jerkily that he understands and flips himself onto his back before going still. Almost as soon as John plays dead the bullets stop.

Danny takes a moment to make sure they’re no longer firing at John before telling Gonzales to lay down cover fire and wading into the river. John is only a couple of feet out, but the water is so deep that Danny doesn’t dare go all the way for fear of the current dragging him away from shore. He stops when the water is at his chest and reaches out, but John is too far away.

“You have to swim to me John,” Danny calls out and John struggles to move his body to propel himself forward. Now that he’s close Danny can tell that John's wounds are so much worse than he thought. His left leg isn’t moving at all and there’s blood seeping into the river from a nasty graze on his neck, but John manages to paddle himself through the water far enough that Danny can reach out and grab his hand.

Danny’s boots stick into the mud when he tries to walk back to the shore and when he does manage to take a step, the swift undercurrents fight against him. His pack is weighing him down in the water and dragging John behind him takes every ounce of strength he has. It feels like it takes him forever but eventually, he manages to drag John to the shore.

“Gonzales, help me!” Danny yells once he’s mostly out of the water. They’ve drifted down river and the bank here is much steeper than where Danny went in. When Gonzales doesn’t answer him, Danny looks back only to see his lifeless body. Gonzales’ helmet has been blown off his head and his once attractive face is now covered in blood, his expression frozen in shock as his wide eyes stare blankly forward.

Danny looks away.

He takes a deep breath and tries to drag John up the hill himself, but he’s too heavy. His hands dig ineffectively into the soggy mud, prying it away from the riverbank everytime he gets a handhold. His feet slip into the water, unable to find purchase. He tries again and again until he’s dug himself a hole so much dirt has fallen away under his grasp and he collapses, trying to think of a new plan.

“Let me go Danno,” John whispers from behind him. John looks pale now, the faint pink blood trails from his wounds quickly disappearing into the water.

“That’s not gonna happen, John,” Danny says, trying to climb the embankment one more time.

“You can’t make it up there dragging me behind you,” John tells him and Danny watches his tongue poke out to wet his lips before he continues, “You need to let me go.”

“I can do it, John,” Danny argues, dread starting to seep into him. He’s afraid that John’s right, that they can’t make it up this hill together, but he’s not ready to let his friend go.

He tries once more, grabbing John by the collar and digging his feet into the mud until he finally finds some purchase. He pushes, putting everything he has into it until he can feel John start to lift out of the water.

Then his boot slips and Danny goes sliding back into the water.

“Let me go, Danno,” John says once more. Danny looks him in the eye and sees that John’s completely at peace with what he’s saying.

“We can make it,” Danny says quietly, begging with John to reconsider. He can feel the tears in his eyes starting to spill over but John just reaches up to grab where his hand is still tangled in his collar.

“I’ll be okay,” John says once his hand finds Danny’s. John’s hand is cold and shaking, but his grip is strong as he untangles Danny’s fingers from his shirt. With Danny no longer holding him up, John slides back into the water until he’s only tethered by his grip on Danny’s hand.

“I’ll be okay,” John says once more and lets go of Danny.

Danny watches numbly as John floats unmoving down the river, past the Vietcong bunkers, until the river bends again and he disappears from view. Danny doesn’t realize he’s been crying until the sound of planes flying overhead shock him back to himself.

The Air Force starts bombing the Vietcong bunkers and once the final round goes off, the field slowly falls into silence. Danny climbs up the bank, onto solid ground to see that the trees where the shooting had been coming from are now destroyed. There’s black smoke coming from the ruins but there’s no more movement and no more gunfire.

Danny stands there watching as everyone on the line starts to relax once they realize the enemy has been destroyed. Now that it’s safe, Danny starts to walk back to the rest of the company in a daze, covered in mud and wet up to his neck, stumbling across the rice paddies. He can see the men starting to gather near the landing zone and when he arrives everyone falls silent.

He knows that he must be a sight, covered in mud from head to toe and still shaking with adrenaline. They part as he approaches, giving him a wide berth.

Danny keeps walking, not entirely sure where he’s headed, but he needs to get further away from that river. He’s stopped when Steve steps in front of him.

“Gonzales and Davies are dead,” Danny reports, his voice hoarse and hollow.

“Danno,” Steve says so compassionately that Danny finally meets his gaze. The look he sees there has the uneasy feeling from that morning coming back tenfold, clawing at him and making him feel ill.

“Where’s Meka?” he asks, suddenly desperate to see his friend. When Steve doesn’t answer he asks again, his voice stronger, but not strong enough to keep the waver out. He looks around the company for him but the few that do meet his gaze just look at him with sympathy.

“Steve,” he begs for an answer. He needs to know that Meka’s okay. He needs to know that the feeling in his gut is  _ wrong _ .

Steve doesn’t answer him, just steps aside far enough that Danny can see Meka, laid out on the ground a few feet away. It feels like he’s been punched, the breath forced out of him as he takes in his friends body, covered in soaked bandages. Doc stands sorrowfully at Meka’s head, looking so pained that he couldn’t save him.

Danny shambles forward, dropping to his knees at Meka’s side. Pain flares up his body from the impact but he doesn’t care. Meka is dead and his little boy will grow up never knowing his father.

Danny can feel the tears starting again and this time he allows them to come, letting them fall down to mix into the blood on Meka's body. He feels a hand on his shoulder and he doesn’t need to turn to know that it’s Steve grieving with him, grieving for him. Buffered by Steve’s strength he lets himself crumble; howling out for the death of his friends, for the loss of the lives they could have lived.

Behind him, he can hear the men moving and then, one by one, they all touch him on the shoulder as they pass by. They don’t say anything, just offer up what little comfort they can give to him until even Steve leaves him alone to mourn.

\---

Danny has barely spoken since they got back to camp. He rarely eats, spends most of his time in his bunk and Steve knows that he’s started smoking again. The whole company is worried about him but Danny’s built his walls so high that none of them can get through to him.

Steve knows that there’s more to the last mission than Meka dying that’s affecting Danny but every time he tries to ask Danny retreats. He’s beginning to wonder if he’ll ever know what really happened out there.

“How is he?” Ward asks when Steve returns to their tent, he’s sitting at their little table, a book in his lap.

“Still not talking,” he sighs, sitting on his cot and running his hands over his face.

“He’ll come around,” Ward says, “Sometimes it just takes time.”

Steve hums in agreement and lies back on his bed, staring up at the canvas roof. There are a dozen things he should be doing - going over their next mission brief, checking in with the rest of the men and writing Aunt Deb back - but his mind is stuck on Danny. Apparently, he’s more preoccupied with his thoughts than he intended, because the next thing he knows, Ward is telling him it’s time for dinner.

He’s in line, talking with Ward about the book he’s been reading when he spots Danny come into the tent. Steve can see that his eyes are red and tired looking, and he looks at everyone with a glare that tells them not to get too close.

Luckily, Steve’s never had much of a preservation instinct.

He steps out of line, apologizing to Ward but he takes it good-naturedly.

“Tell him we’re all worried about him,” Ward says as he leaves.

Danny’s the last in line so Steve steps behind him, moving forward as the guy in front of Danny starts to pile food onto his tray. “Are you going to say  _ anything _ ?” he asks the back of Danny’s head, his frustration bleeding into his words. Danny’s answer is to grab a tray and advance with the line and Steve sees red. “That’s it,” he growls, taking Danny’s tray to put it back and grabbing him by the arm.

Everyone quiets and stares as he frog marches a yelling Danny out of the tent, but no one moves to help him. Danny fights and curses at him as he’s marched across the camp but Steve doesn’t care anymore, they’re going to hash this out tonight if it kills him. He notices a couple more confused stares from straggles around camp, but then he’s shoving Danny into his tent and making sure the flap closes behind him.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing you caveman!” Danny rounds on him, finally getting some life into him.

“We’re gonna talk,” Steve orders and Danny stiffens.

“No, we’re not,” Danny tries to push past him, but Steve blocks him, “Get out of my way Steve,” he warns but Steve has had enough of Danny’s sulking.

“No,” he says, stepping forward to block Danny in, “I know that you’re hurt, but don’t push us away. Don’t push  _ me _ away,” he begs, but Danny’s not about to give in that easily. Danny pushes him and now Steve’s mad. “Don’t do that,” he warns but it just falls on deaf ears.

Danny shoves him once more and Steve has had enough, he grabs Danny by the wrist and twists him around, shoving him down against his little table and pressing close against him, blocking Danny in so that he has nowhere to move. Danny struggles against him, trying to throw him off, but Steve has him pinned.

“I know that you’re hurting,” Steve says lowly, keeping his voice calm but forceful and pushing against Danny to try and get him to still, “but you do not get to take it out on me.” He waits for any sign of a response and knows he’s gotten through to Danny when he feels his body relax. Danny drops his head against the table and he knows that Danny’s given in. He loosens his grip on Danny’s arm, testing to make sure he’s done fighting, and then lets go completely so that Danny can stand up.

Danny pushes himself upright and just stands there. Steve sighs, hating to see Danny so uncharacteristically lifeless, and moves so that he can wrap his arms around him. Steve presses his cheek against the back of Danny’s head and takes Danny’s hand when he reaches up. They stand like that for a few minutes before he feels Danny start to shake and he realizes that Danny’s crying. He whispers platitudes into Danny’s ear, telling him that it’s going to be alright and takes up Danny’s weight when he finally breaks.

Steve moves them both to his little cot and lays them down, spooning up behind Danny and holding onto him as he cries. He sheds a few tears himself for how broken Danny is feeling and all the pain that they’ve both had to witness, and wishes that he knew how to comfort him better. After a while, he can hear Danny start to calm as his ragged crying slowly evens out into long shallow breaths. If not for Danny’s fingers tracing over the back of his hand, Steve would think that he’d fallen asleep.

“He knew about us,” Danny finally says, his rough voice breaking the silence. It’s barely more than a strained whisper but Steve catches the words as clear as day, forcing himself not to tense up and panic. Danny turns around in his arms so that they’re facing each other, and Steve takes the opportunity to wipe away the tear tracks drying on Danny’s face. “Meka saw us kiss behind the bar. He knew we were together,” Danny elaborates. For one horrifying moment Steve’s grateful that Meka isn’t alive to spoil his secret it’s immediately washed out by shame for feeling that way. Luckily, Danny misinterprets the expression he’s making.

“He liked you,” Danny tells him, his blue eyes shining bright with remembered memories, “He said that we were good for each other, that we evened each other out. He was the first person to try and get to know me when I got assigned to Company C.”

The immediate change of subject has Steve stumbling to catch up but he doesn’t interrupt. He just lets Danny get lost in the memories as he retells them.

He hears some voices outside but no one comes into the tent, he’s not sure if it’s luck or what that Ward knew to give them space, but he’s grateful nonetheless. When Danny finally runs out of things to say they just stare at each other, crammed together on his tiny bed, “I should get going,” Danny says, reluctantly standing up and running his hands over his face and through his hair, trying to straighten it. Steve slowly follows Danny to his feet and to the flap of the tent, stopping when Danny turns around to face him again, “Thank you,” he says sincerely, taking his hand and squeezing it.

Steve opens his mouth to say something but the words get stuck. All he can think to say is  _ I think I’m falling in love with you _ but it’s not the right time. So instead he smiles, puts a finger under Danny’s chin to lift his head and kisses him. There’s no heat behind this kiss, it’s not going to lead to anything more. It’s a kiss to say everything that he can’t yet.

When they separate, Danny smiles like he understands and Steve watches as he listens for anyone walking outside the tent before slipping through the flaps and disappearing into the dark night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Follow me on [Tumblr](http://erandri.tumblr.com/)!


	7. Back Into the Delta

Two days have passed since Danny’s breakdown, and Steve can see that he’s doing better, but he’s still nowhere near okay. He still walls himself up, turns maudlin when something triggers a memory, but at least he’s talking again. He’ll take that for the win it is.

“We’ve received intel of a Vietcong encampment in this area,” Grover announces, getting Steve’s attention and reminding him that he’s in a briefing and he needs to be watching what Grover is going over, “Our source tells us that there are three bunkers dug in here, here, and here,” he continues, pointing to three circles marked out on the map. The area can’t be more than a mile wide but it looks like it’s all rice paddies, all of the available tree cover falling behind the bunker's location.

He watches closely as Grover lays out the plan, that companies B and C will attack from the front, while company A moves in from across the river and takes them by surprise. They’ll attack at sundown, when the sun will be behind company A, giving them the best cover.

“It seems like a risky plan, Sir,” Steve speaks up once Grover has finished, “How do we know this intel is good?”

“Our source has given us plenty of reliable tips in the past. There’s no reason to doubt the validity of this one,” Grover dismisses him. When there are no more comments Lou leaves all of them to study the battle plans before they go to relay them to their own units. Steve can’t help thinking that there’s got to be another way to do this, but the maps show that the area is too well protected. This is the best, if not the only, plan that they have; the other platoon leaders seem to realize it too because, even though they all share the same worried looks, no one offers up a better plan.

The team takes the news that they’re going to be bait with resigned acceptance. It’s the unspoken rule of the war that the infantry is bait, it’s just rare that they’re faced with that truth so openly. Still, when he finishes his briefing and tells the men to get some rest, there’s no complaints, no muttering about the army trying to kill them all, just a couple questions about updating wills and what kind of chow is being served that night.

He eats dinner with Danny, Ward, Bugs, and Mickey, shoveling down the shit on a shingle that the cooks try to pass off as hot turkey sandwiches. They spend dinner talking about inane things. Bugs shares the latest news from home and Ward tells them about the latest game scores. Steve thinks he would make for one hell of a sports announcer when they get home. He’s got a way of talking about a football game that makes it seem more exciting than if they were watching from the 50-yard line.

All too soon the night comes to an end and they file out of the mess tent. He walks next to Danny as they move through camp, their arms brushing every once in a while. It makes him feel good, just being that close to Danny. He’s reminded of the night in Saigon when they walked through the streets brushing against each other just like that. The memories bring his longing to the forefront and he wishes desperately that he was able to invite Danny back to his tent, that they could share just one more night together.

When he needs to leave the group to head towards his own tent Danny tells him goodnight, bumping their arms together. He sees Ward waiting for him in his periphery, so he clasps Danny on the shoulder and tells him to get a good night's sleep.

\---

The company meets again after lunch the next day, looking well rested but wary of what the day will bring. They’ve gone over the plan again and he’s watched each of the men double check their gear, making sure their guns are ready and their supplies are stocked. They’re traveling light today, only carrying the necessities since they don’t plan on staying in the field any longer than they have to.

Steve finishes checking his own gear for the second time when he notices Danny standing out by the loading area, waiting for their transport helicopter.

“Everything okay, Danno?” he asks, coming up beside Danny and seeing a hardness in his eyes that’s never been there before.

“Ready and waiting,” Danny says eagerly and it screams  _ wrong wrong wrong _ at him. Danny’s never been excited to go to battle, he’s never wanted the adrenaline high of a firefight.

“Maybe you should sit this one out,” he offers, “You’re still grieving for Meka, I can-”

“You want to bench me?” Danny rounds on him.

“No, Danny-” he tries to defend himself but Danny doesn’t give him the opportunity.

“If you pull me from this I will never forgive you McGarrett. This isn’t about Meka, this is about me being there to protect the rest of my team,” Danny gives his little speech so fervently that Steve finds he believes him.

“Okay,” he says with a sigh, “but don’t do anything reckless. Please.”

“I promise,” Danny says. Steve searches his face for any sign that he’s lying, but there’s nothing. Just raw honesty and the need to protect the rest of his friends, so Steve nods and leaves him to go check on the rest of the unit.

\---

They come out of a helicopter at a run. Company B landed just a few minutes before them and they’re already exchanging fire across the rice paddies. Danny splashes into ankle deep water as soon as he steps off the ramp and heads into the fray. He can hear Steve calling out commands over the sound of the rotor blades, telling them to spread out and form a line.

He follows Mickey through the field, keeping low so that they’re less of a target. They were some of the first ones out so they have to run the farthest until they start to close the gap with Company B. When they finally get close enough they turn and start to fire at the enemy.

He has no idea where he’s supposed to be shooting. There’s gunfire coming from everywhere and the Vietcong are dug in so well it’s impossible to see them through the thick tree cover. He fires anyway, taking aim at the line of trees and hoping he hits something.

Every once in a while the water around him will spray up as bullets land so he advances whenever there’s a lull. He drowns everything else out and focuses on just moving forward and easily enough it becomes a routine. Fire, cover, advance, repeat.

He drags himself through the shallow water that way until he’s reached the end of the field and his progress is blocked by an earthen dike. Unable to go any farther without making a target of himself, he lies down and uses the dirt as cover while he takes aim at the trees.

Vaguely, he realizes that Mickey is no longer next to him but he’s close enough now that he can see the faintest movement of the Vietcong in the treeline so he fires at it. He gets away with that for a long while, he even thinks he manages to hit a few people before the Vietcong scope out his position.

Suddenly, a row of machine gun fire rips through the water, making a beeline straight for him. He has just enough time to roll out of the way before the water where he was just laying is riddled with bullets. He swears and throws an arm over his head, hoping that they didn’t see him move out of the way. There hadn’t been anything in the briefing suggesting that the Vietcong were so heavily armed. 

The bullets stop for a moment and he sighs in relief, hoping that now he’ll have a chance to regroup. Apparently, he doesn’t have that kind of luck though. Just as soon as the machine gun fire stopped, it starts again. This time the shooter sweeps up and down the dike, searching him out.

Danny huddles low behind his cover, listening as each bullet buries itself into the other side of the dirt mound and flinching whenever one manages to land on his side of the berm. All around him the battle rages on. The sound of the Vietcong’s .50 caliber gun is deafening as the sound carries over the water, the periods in between rounds filled with the quick  _ pop pop pop _ of the infantry returning fire and the occasional mortar shell being launched. Still, mixed into all of the noise he can hear the faint, anguished cries of _medic_ carrying across the field. Every time it seems to be a different voice, someone calling to his right, then someone to his left. Idly, he wonders if Doc can even get to the wounded under this much heat.

The shooting continues for what feels like forever until, blessedly, he hears the sound of air support coming in and the whistle of bombs dropping across the field. For a second the shooting stops and he uses it to take a look behind him, hoping to find a way to retreat further from the front. Instead, he sees the bright yellow smoke of a marker and realizes in terror that he’s too far ahead of the line.

Danny desperately tries to crawl back, slagging through the shallow water and hoping that the Vietcong stay covered long enough for him to get some distance between them. They don’t. The last of the planes fly over, dropping their payload between him and the Vietcong bunkers and getting closer with each pass. The ground rumbles underneath him as the explosives hit and no sooner has the last bomb exploded when the shooting starts again.

Danny realizes that he only has one option. He’s out in the open now, far enough away from the safety of the dike to be a sitting duck for any halfway decent Vietcong gun and he’s still in the line of fire for the air force. He can hear the sound of the next round of bombers getting closer, any second the first bombs will start dropping. He waits for the roar of the jets to pass over and gets ready, crouching and eyeing the next berm just fifty or so feet away. After that, he’ll safely be in the final field and he can crawl his way behind the marker.

He can hear his pulse rushing in his ears, his heart trying to thunder it’s way right out of him and for the first time in this war he’s genuinely scared that he’s going to die out here. The first bomb drops, hitting closer than he expected and sending a blast wave across the fields. He counts to three under his breath to calm himself, waits for a lull in the shooting and runs.

He only has eyes for the dike, he just has to make it to the other side, and then he can cover again. His feet splash through the rice field, spraying up water onto his already soaked uniform. He can feel his helmet bouncing against his head with each step, and then suddenly it’s gone. Blown off by a bullet and landing in the water in front of him. He doesn’t even have time to panic before another bullet tears through him. His right leg gives out and he falls, landing face first in the water a couple of feet from the next dike. There’s more bombing, this time directly behind him and it gives him the precious seconds he needs to grab his now dented helmet, slap it back onto his head and crawl the last few feet to the berm.

His leg feels like it’s on fire as he drags himself through the field, his right knee protesting with each little movement, but he doesn’t look at it. When his fingers claw into the grass of the berm he uses his grip to haul himself over the ledge, pushing off with his left leg to get himself to safety.

His helmet falls off again when he lands but he doesn’t care anymore. He presses himself as tight as he can against the mound, catching his breath and staring up at the sky. It’s beautiful, blue as far as the eye can see and completely unperturbed by the violence happening below it. He wonders what the sky back home looks like right now; if he’ll ever get to see it again.

The sound of helicopters is getting closer and Danny knows that he needs to keep moving but when he tries pain shoots up his leg. He cries out, dropping back down into the water and trying to catch his breath. He can’t safely lift his head high enough to see the damage but when he reaches a hand down it comes away sticky with blood. He swears, wondering what he can do now when the ground starts to shake again and he realizes he missed hearing the next round of airstrikes approaching. He turns his head back and watches as a Huey bursts through the cloud of smoke, flying right over him and dropping bombs.

He scrambles for his helmet and gets it back on his head just as the plane flies over to his left. He closes his eyes as the first of the bombs hits, striking further down the field and sending up a spray of mud and water. He takes cover as each bomb drops closer and closer to him and then does something he hasn’t done in years. As the next bomb detonates he starts to pray.

“Our father, who art in heaven,” he starts, feeling tears start to trail down his cheek, “hallowed be thy name.” The words sound shaky as he forces them out, the sounds muffled where he has his face pressed into his arms. The words are drowned out by the sounds of the bombs dropping and the ever-present sound of gunfire. He opens his mouth to continue when he hears it, a low whistle, closer than any of the others had been. Danny chokes out a sob, knowing that this is it. All he can think as he lays there, waiting for the end, is that he should have listened to Steve and stayed back at camp.

The ground below him drops away when the explosion goes off. For one terrifying second, he’s weightless. Then the ground comes rushing back up to him and everything goes black.

\---

Their intel was wrong. It’s all Steve can think as they’re pelted by heavy artillery fire. Nothing in their briefing said the Vietcong were this well equipped and the fight has barely started when he’s already being forced to pull his men back.

Next to him, he watches as a soldier from a different unit catches a bullet in the shoulder. He falls back into the water and Steve rushes to help him.

“Son of a bitch, that hurts,” the man complains as soon as Steve crouches next to him. He rips the man's uniform where the bullet entered, revealing a nasty hole in his shoulder. It’s painful but he probably won’t die from it, and in fact, it might just be a million dollar wound.

He doesn’t bother to call for a medic, just grabs a compression bandage out of the man's pack and ties it on him before telling him to get further back where the wounded are being treated. The man thanks him and does as he says, and Steve turns back to his own unit.

Ward is receiving updates over the radio and relaying them to him. He tries to give direction to his men accordingly but they’re so far out that he has no hope of relaying information to most of them. He tries anyway, grabbing a couple of young guys and giving them orders to relay.

They run up and down the line for him, updating whoever they can find from the company and coming back to him with information on who’s been wounded, who’s running low on ammo, who’s dead.

The fight goes on like that for about an hour before he starts to realize that something’s wrong. Company A should have made their move by now and started cutting off each side of the bunkers but there’s nothing to suggest that they’ve joined the fight. He scans the field, looking for any sign of the Vietcong forces diminishing.

“Lieutenant,” Ward calls to him over the noise of the battle, “Company A received too heavy fire, they had to pull out. Captain Grover has decided to move to plan B.”

Steve nods in understanding and looks for one of his runners, returning fire while he waits. Soon enough one of the men comes back, reporting casualties before he even comes to a stop. When he finishes, Steve hands him a smoke grenade.

“Find the furthest man forward and pop this,” he orders, “tell everyone they’re sending in the Air Force.”

The kid nods in understanding and takes off like a shot, sliding down into cover when he spots some troops only to pop back up a second later to move on further down the line. When his second runner comes back Steve tells him the same thing and watches as he heads off in the other direction.

One by one he can see grenades go off across the field, yellow smoke billowing into the air to show the Air Force where they’re located. He takes a moment to search the field for Danny, hoping that he’s okay, but there’s so much commotion that he’d never be able to spot which man was him.

The first round of bombers flies directly over his head, dropping their payload exactly where the Vietcong have dug in. There’s a pause in the shooting, everyone waiting to see if the bombs have done the job. When they start receiving fire they all start shooting again until the next bombers fly overhead and the process repeats.

The third round of bombers drops their payload too early, the bombs exploding closer to the line than any of them are comfortable with, and Steve is on the radio instantly.

“Tell those damn air jockeys to fire  _ past _ the yellow smoke,” he yells into the line. Someone on the other end says something to him but he doesn’t pay attention to it, closing the line and handing the radio back to Ward.

The two of them start firing again when the last bomb explodes, taking turns when one of them needs to reload. He pops up when Ward’s empty and swears when his gun jams after a few shots.

“I’m jammed,” he announces, lying down beside Ward. His sergeant nods and reloads, popping back up and shooting. He tries to get his gun unstuck when suddenly Ward falls backward beside him.

“Jesus,” he swears when he sees that Ward isn’t just reloading, but he’s been shot. He scrambles to his knees, leaning over Ward to inspect the wound. Ward has his hand clasped tightly over his neck but there’s blood pouring out from between his fingers, already darkening the water that he’s lying in. “Let me see,” he says, prying Ward’s hand away from his neck.

The bullet’s ripped through his neck, a straight through and through. Immediately, blood starts to spurt out of the wound and Steve clasps their hands back down over it, putting as much pressure on it as he can and ignoring Ward’s whimpers. He yells desperately for a medic, his voice carrying over the sound of gunfire.

“Stay with me Ward,” he orders as he frees one of his hands to dig out a bandage. He slaps it over their hands, quickly moving them out of the way and then putting pressure back on. Blood starts to soak into the cotton, staining it red, and Steve digs out the rest of his supplies, spreading them out on Ward's chest so that he can get to them. He put his last two bandages over the wound as Ward gasps for air.

“Stay with me buddy,” he mutters, trying to divide his attention between Ward and the wound, “Just stay with me, alright? Fuck.  _ Medic _ ,” he hollers desperately across the field, but he’s not the only one yelling for help.

The bandages are already soaked through, blood starting to wet his hands again and Steve knows that at this point only a miracle could save Ward. He tries anyway, keeping pressure on the wound even as he feels Wards grip on the bandages loosen under his hand.

“Ward? C’mon buddy, we’re supposed to listen to the game tomorrow,” he says, noticing the glassy look in his friends' eyes, “Daryl,” he tries again but there’s no response. Slowly, he reaches out to try and find a pulse but there’s nothing.

Steve bows his head, taking just a second to mourn his friend, letting a couple tears fall before getting back to business. He peels his hands off of Wards wounds and slowly closes his eyes, then he takes up Ward’s gun with blood-stained hands and starts shooting again. Above him another wave of Air Force bombers flies over, dropping bombs directly on the Vietcong.

No sooner has the last bomb dropped than a runner finds him, announcing that they’re to retreat. He nods that he understands and the runner is off to find the next soldier. Steve shoulders his weapon and looks down at Ward sorrowfully. A couple minutes earlier and his friend might still be alive, but instead of walking with Ward, Steve grabs him by the collar and drags his body through the fields to the evacuation zone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Follow me on [Tumblr](http://erandri.tumblr.com/)!


	8. In Enemy Territory

Lou looks up in surprise when Steve barges into his tent. “Sir, permission to take a helicopter to find survivors in the field.” He demands as politely as he’s able.

“Denied,” Lou says coolly, looking him up and down with sympathy before turning back to his paperwork. He’s fresh off the helicopter, still wet from the field and covered in Ward’s blood.

When Steve doesn’t move at his dismissal, Lou looks up again, “Is there anything else?”

“Sir, I have men in that field,” Steve says. They returned without six men today, six men who could still be out in those rice paddies waiting for a rescue.

“I understand that Lieutenant and I’m very sorry, but your request is still denied.”

“All I would need is a small team, six men to get-”

“Steve,” Lou snaps, cutting him off, “I understand that you want to get your men back, but I cannot authorize a suicide mission. The area is crawling with Vietcong and we don’t even know if those men are still alive.”

“Sir-”

“Our intel was bad, Steve, and we lost a lot of men today. I’m sorry for that, but I cannot let you risk the lives of more men on the slim hope of rescuing six soldiers,” Lou orders, standing up behind his desk and rolling his shoulders back so that he’s at his full height, “I heard you lost Ward and now you want to save whoever you can. I understand that, but if I see you go anywhere near a helicopter, I’ll have you court-martialed and sent back to the states so fast your head’ll spin.”

Steve stares him down but Lou doesn’t budge an inch. “When I write the notification letters to the families of those six men, I’ll be sure to mention you send your condolences,” Steve spits and turns on his heel.

Lou yells at him to come back but Steve is already gone, shoving his way through the flaps in the tent and stalking across the camp. He walks until the frustration overcomes him and he slams his fist into the nearest hard surface he can. Pain shoots up his arm and he swears, but his head is clear for the first time since they started the retreat. He knows that Lou is right to deny him, but he’ll be damned if it doesn’t feel like a knife twisting in him, knowing that he has men out there that he can’t help. 

When the final man boarded the helicopter and he saw Danny wasn’t with them he felt like he couldn’t breathe. He wonders if Danny’s still alive out there, waiting for Steve to come and find him or if he’s- Steve doesn’t let himself finish the thought. Nobody had seen Danny since they got dropped off. Mickey remembered seeing him try to advance the line, but Mickey had quickly been shot and taken behind the line for the medics to patch him up.

He tells himself that no news is good news. No one saw Danny get shot, so it stands to reason that Danny is still alive and he holds onto that hope like a drowning man holds onto a life preserver. Until he sees Danny’s body there’s simply no other option.

\---

It’s sometime later when the door to his tent is thrown open and Lou comes in. Steve stands at attention, waiting for his dressing down. He had been expecting it for his outburst earlier but he had been hoping that Lou would wait at least until the morning. The captains' expression is unreadable as he stands across from him in the small space.

“There’s a boat waiting to take you and four men to the field,” Lou tells him.

“Sir?” he asks, thrown. Of everything he had expected the captain to say, that wasn’t it.

“I just got off of a very lengthy phone call with the major,” Lou tells him, “They’ve decided to abandon the field; the Vietcong are too dug in and it’s not a pivotal area. They’re cutting their losses.”

“But sir, the men-” Steve argues but Lou shuts him up with a glance.

“There’s a patrol boat waiting at the docks and the skipper’s been wanting to do some night exercises. If five men were to go along with him well, I wouldn’t know anything about it. I’ve been asleep for the last hour,” Lou tells him pointedly. Steve nods in understanding and moves to leave the tent but Lou stops him with a hand on his arm, “There won’t be another rescue Steve. If you don’t make it back you’ll all be written up as AWOL and presumed dead.”

“I understand.”

“Make sure the others do too.”

Lou releases his arm but Steve pauses. “Can I ask sir, why are you doing this?”

“Those are my men out there too. If any of them are still alive out there they deserve to come home.” Lou’s expression softens and for the first time Steve doesn’t see him as a commanding officer, just another man thrown into war.

“I’ll bring them home,” he promises and leaves to find his men.

When he enters their tent everyone stares up at him from their cots with worries looks, expecting more bad news. “I need four volunteers,” is all he says, but everyone knows what he’s asking.

One by one all of the remaining members of his unit stand up, offering themselves to go on a suicide mission with him. Even Mickey, with his leg still bandaged from getting shot earlier, pushes himself to his feet to volunteer. 

They stare at him expectantly, waiting to be chosen, and for a moment, Steve is overcome. When he arrived this unit had twenty-five men, now they’re down to fourteen and every one of them is offering themselves for the flimsy chance that even just one of their missing men is still alive.

He picks four men and they leave without another word, sneaking down to the docks where their boat is waiting, as promised. There are guns and knives waiting for them, as well as night camouflage. They each get ready as the skipper unties the boat and the slip into the darkness.

\---

When Danny comes to the moon is high overhead, peeking out from a hole in the thick cloud cover, the soft light reflecting in the water around him. He’s on his back in the shallow water and covered in dirt but somehow still alive. For a second he doesn’t believe it, but if this is heaven it’s a messed up joke.

His whole body aches and for a long time he just lies still, mentally doing a tally to make sure everything is still attached. His head feels like it’s about to explode and his right leg below the knee is numb, but when he looks he can still move his foot so he thinks he might be okay. After he’s made sure that all of his appendages are attached the panic starts to set in.

The field is silent except for the occasional sound of the breeze rustling the leaves of the trees. Which means the battle is over, the unit is gone and they left him there.

He can feel his heart begin to race and suddenly it's getting difficult for him to breathe. A chill comes over him and the world around him starts to go out of focus. The need to see Grace again overcomes him and distantly, he feels himself crying. Everything feels unsteady and even with the firm ground against his back, he feels like he’s falling. He claws desperately at the ground underneath him, digging his fingers into the soft earth and holding on tightly.

Slowly he starts to recite the Mets lineup, closing his eyes against the night sky and whispering each name. It takes him three times before he starts to calm down and he recites everything twice more before he feels like he can open his eyes again.

It’s still dark out but the world is once again in focus. He takes a shaky breath and lets it out slowly. He unclenches his hands and pulls them out of the muddy dirt, flexing his fingers to loosen them up again. Carefully, he rolls onto his stomach and pain flares up his right leg. He muffles his groan in his arm and breathes through the pain. He can feel his knee throbbing with each beat of his heart but he doesn’t let it stop him. Slowly, he reaches out and pulls himself through the water, away from the Vietcong bunker.

He crawls for what seems like hours, dragging himself through the rice fields and over the dirt paths that separate them. His right leg has gone numb again and he worries about what it means, but he ignores it, pushes the pain to the back of his mind and keeps crawling.

He’s almost to the next berm when he hears voices carrying over the water. Slowly, he turns his head and sees two men in the distance, speaking Vietnamese to each other as they walk through the field. For a moment he wonders if it’s looters, hopes that it’s something so innocent, but those hopes fade when one of the men stabs something on the ground. Danny doesn’t have to look any closer to know that it was a body and that they’re both Vietcong soldiers sent out to make sure everyone’s dead.

Panic creeps up on him again and he keeps moving. He needs to find somewhere to hide but the only place is the tree line at the end of the field a couple hundred feet away.

Finally, he reaches the next berm and darts a quick look back at the Vietcong soldiers. It’s hard to tell in the moonlight but it looks like they’re facing away from him. Quickly he hauls himself over the berm and drops down onto the other side, splashing down into the water.

Danny freezes and holds his breath, praying that he wasn’t heard. A lifetime seems to pass as he lays there in the cool water, listening for any sign of someone approaching. For a long time there’s nothing, and then, whispered voices- barely loud enough for him to hear- and Danny knows that they know he’s out there. Overhead, clouds pass over the moon, throwing everything into darkness. He hopes that it’s enough to save him, that the Vietcong have no idea where he is and they’ll give up, hoping that he bleeds out.

He strains his ears listening for any sign of someone approaching, not daring to lift his head to take a look. There’s a splash of water to his right and Danny tenses but forces himself to not move. He hears the soldiers whisper again, closer this time, and wishes he had a weapon on him but he dropped his gun in the last explosion and didn’t think to try and find it again.

The footsteps get closer and closer until suddenly he hears splashing again. He tries to figure out what the sounds mean, but just as soon as they started, they stop and the footsteps are approaching him again. In his periphery, he can see a shape looming in his view and he knows that this is it. He’s going to die.

Danny closes his eyes, not wanting to see what’s about to happen. He always kinda figured he’d be afraid to die, but he’s strangely resigned to his fate. He doesn’t have a weapon on him, he’s exhausted and can’t feel his right leg. There’s nothing more he can do except think of Grace and wait.

The footsteps stop just on the other side of the berm and Danny listens for the finishing blow, but it never comes. Instead, a trembling voice breathes out  _ Danno? _

Danny snaps his eyes open, not believing what he just heard, but he’d know that voice anywhere. Suddenly, the shape above him bends down and what had just been a faceless enemy, turns into Steve staring at him in disbelief.

“You’re alive,” Steve says and hauls him up, crushing him in a fierce hug and burying his face in the crook of Danny’s neck. Danny cries out in pain at the movement, pressing his face into Steve’s shoulder to muffle the sound. “Sorry, I’m sorry,” Steve says, pushing him away to get a better look at him.

Danny can’t believe his eyes. Steve is there, face painted and covered in black, but he's real and solid.

“You’re here,” Danny’s voice cracks and he knows that he’s crying again, but he doesn’t care. Steve is there, Steve rescued him.

He’s going to live.

The tears come in earnest now, the tension of the situation finally breaking. Carefully, Steve pulls him close again, using the cover of darkness to kiss him once, softly, before holding onto him again.

“You’re going to be okay,” Steve whispers to him and he believes it. Over Steve’s shoulder, Danny can see the bodies of two Vietcong laying in the water not ten feet away.

\---

Danny wakes to the smell of antiseptic and cigarette smoke. Somewhere in the distance, a radio is quietly playing, the song blending in with the steady beep of machinery. When he opens his eyes everything seems hazy but he’d recognize a hospital in any country.

“Hey, hey he’s up!” someone calls and then Bug’s face is floating into his vision, “Look at you, you lucky sonuvabitch,” he says with a huge smile.

He tries to ask what’s going on but it devolves into a coughing fit. Suddenly there are more hands on him, lifting him up and steadying him and before he knows what’s happened his bed’s been moved and he’s been propped up with pillows. When everyone moves away he sees that almost the whole unit’s crowded around his bed.

“How’re you feeling?” Doc asks him.

“Fuzzy,” he answers honestly and the group chuckles. As he finally gets his head to clear he can see that his right leg has been propped up on some pillows, the knee bandaged and wrapped with a brace. “Where am I?”

“Saigon. McGarrett pulled some strings to get us assigned to a supply run so we could say goodbye,” Bugs tells him.

“What happened?”

“Million dollar wound,” Steve says, giving him a sad smile, “They’re sending you home next week.”

Steve comes to stand next to him, resting his hands on Danny’s mattress and Danny surreptitiously presses the back of his hand against Steves. Steve’s gaze darts down to it, then around the group, before he subtly presses back. Everyone congratulates him on the news, drawing his attention away from Steve as the conversation turns to what he’s going to do when he gets home.

Danny talks with everyone as long as he can but he starts to flag quickly. The unit notices but they’re just as reluctant to part as he is, so he holds out as long as he can. It’s Steve who eventually calls it, telling everyone to wrap up so that he can get some sleep.

One by one each of the men says their goodbyes, telling him to take care of himself and to tell his Ma thanks for all the care packages. He tells each of them to look out for themselves and watches as they leave his room. They’ve become a family out here and it’s bittersweet to say goodbye to them. 

Waits for everyone to say goodbye before pulling the curtains around the bed closed to give them a small bit of privacy.

“Hi,” Danny greets him when he’s sure the rest of their company is gone.

“Hi,” Steve says back. Danny can hear the sadness in his voice but Steve refuses to let it show.

“I thought you said not to do anything stupid,” he says and watches as Steve’s eyes go wide before a chuckle bursts out of him.

“I’m not very good at following my own advice,” Steve apologizes, tangling their fingers together under his blanket. “We’re moving out tomorrow,” he says suddenly and Danny’s heart sinks. He should have expected that they wouldn’t have much time together, but he had been hoping for more than just a couple of hours.

“Where are you going?”

“Farther north, there’s a lot of Vietcong activity popping up in some of the villages.” Steve doesn’t elaborate and Danny doesn’t know what else to say, so they end up just staring at each other. Danny drinks him in, trying to remember every detail, every touch they’ve shared. He wants to kiss Steve once more but he knows he can’t. As if sensing where his thoughts have gone, Steve squeezes his hand as if to say  _ me too _ .

“I should go,” Steve says, untangling their hands but making no other move to leave. Instead, Steve looks at him with determination and whispers “I love you” so quietly that Danny has to train to hear him.

“I love you too,” he murmurs back sadly and watches as Steve leaves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Follow me on [Tumblr](http://erandri.tumblr.com/)!


	9. Epilogue

It’s dusk when the plane touches down in New York and it hits him for the first time that he’s home. It feels odd to see so much concrete after only seeing jungle and rice paddies for months. Steve can just see the lights of the skyline starting to flicker on in the horizon and it stirs something in him, a homesickness that he’s been living with so long he forgot that he had it. He spent so little time in San Francisco that it never sank in that his tour was over. Now he’s confronted face first with having to adapt to civilian life.

“Sir? Do you need any help?” A stewardess asks him and he turns to find that, while he was looking out the window, most of the passengers have left the plane.

“No, sorry. Sorry,” he apologizes, quickly grabbing his pack and catching up with the last few people disembarking.

He doesn’t have any luggage on him besides his bag so he quickly bypasses the line of people waiting for their bags and steps out of the airport and into the cool air, hailing the first cab he sees. When the driver asks him where he’s going he tells him New Jersey.

Once the driver pulls away from the curb Steve pulls a letter out of his pocket again. It had been waiting for him when he got back to camp after signing his discharge papers and one look at it made him change his plane from catching a plane back home, to fly all the way to New York The paper’s been worn soft by how much he’s handled it, the creases starting to fray from all the times it’s been unfolded and folded again. He reads the message slowly even though he already knows it by heart.

_ Steve, _

_ I hope this letter finds you in one piece. I’ve written to you a thousand times but each one never seemed to say what needed to be said. I’m not sure this one says it either. _

_ It’s different, being home. Ma and Pa think they get it but they don’t, and I don’t have the heart to tell them the things we went through so we could live. _

_ I have nightmares. Sometimes about Meka, sometimes about the other guys. Mostly I dream about the field. I dream you don’t come for me, or you don’t get there in time. It’s been almost five months since I got home but somehow I miss Vietnam. Is that crazy? _

_ I don’t miss the war, I’m glad to not be over there anymore, but I miss the platoon. I miss falling asleep to Bugs’ snoring and the way Mickey would always ask me if something his little baby was doing was normal. Hell, some nights I even miss the hard jungle floor under me. _

_ I miss you. _

_ We both knew what was going to happen, but it doesn’t change the fact. I just thought that you should know. _

Steve stops and rereads the last couple of lines, smiling down fondly at the script. Danny doesn’t say anything more, there’s no room since the rest of the page is taken up by bright crayon scribbles. At the bottom of the page, Danny has signed  _ Love, Danno and Gracie _ .

He folds the paper again and presses it against his lips, breathing in and imagining that he can smell Danny on the page.

He spends the ride looking out the car window, watching as they approach New York City, then as the skyline fades from view. Eventually, the cabbie pulls off the highway and onto the streets of West Orange. They pass roads and roads of houses until the driver turns and pulls to a stop in front of a quaint townhouse.

“This is your stop,” the cabbie says and Steve pays the man, before sliding out of the back seat.

Steve barely has the door closed when the cabbie drives off, leaving him to make the journey of the last couple of feet to Danny’s door alone. He moves cautiously to the first step, nervous for the first time since he booked his ticket that maybe he won’t be welcome.

He makes it to the top step and stops with his hand halfway to the door. He can hear voices inside, faint but energetic, and in the din of the noise, he hears Danny talking. The words are too faint to make out through the door, but Steve knows Danny’s voice. Emboldened, he raps his fist against the door a couple of times and listens as the talking inside stops.

There’s the sound of running feet falling heavily onto a hardwood floor and then someone is fiddling with the door lock. Steve swallows down his apprehension and stands tall as the door swings open to reveal… nothing.

Confusedly, his looks down and his heart skips when he sees Grace staring up at him. Her faces changes from surprised, to confused, and finally to happiness when she runs back into the house.

“Danno! It’s Steve!” She calls out from somewhere inside the house and he wants to laugh at Danny’s confused response of “What?”

“It’s Steve, Danno! Come see!” he hears Grace say and then there’s the sound of footsteps again, this time moving slower.

He can feel his heart beat race faster with every step they take closer until finally, Grace comes back into view pulling Danny by the hand behind her.

He’s got a cane, and his hair is longer, but he’s never looked better to Steve.

“Steve,” Danny whispers like he doesn’t believe what he’s seeing and Steve doesn’t know what to say. He’s run this moment through his mind so many times, imagining what it would feel like to see Danny again, to hear his voice and be able to hold him but suddenly he’s tongue-tied.

“You told Grace about me?” He eventually says, which isn’t at all what he was planning, but it seems to knock Danny out of his stupor.

“I told- of course I told Grace about you, you big lug!” Danny yells, the hand not holding his cane waving wildly, “What do you take me for you schmuck- why are you smiling?” Danny cuts himself off, the bluster fading.

Steve takes his first step into the Williams’ house, swinging the door shut behind him without taking his eyes off of Danny. He waits until he’s toe to toe with Danny when he says, “I missed you, too,” and leans down and kisses him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Follow me on [Tumblr](http://erandri.tumblr.com/)!


	10. Playlist

 

Listen to the Spotify playlist [here](https://open.spotify.com/user/1222554821/playlist/7mGuoWmA0hdP94yfU2fXJO?si=-1IcfSwZS9aIfbohGxEbdw)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Follow me on [Tumblr](http://erandri.tumblr.com/)!


End file.
